


The Hill Street Waitress.

by steeleye



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hill Street Blues
Genre: Action, Comedy, Gen, crossover fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3428201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was like no one Buffy knew existed anymore, that she’d been dumped in this hell-hole of a town with inadequate clothing and only seventy-five cents. Heaven just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Hill Street Waitress.

By Steeleye.

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Hill Street Blues. I write these stories for fun not profit.

Crossover: Hill Street Blues.

Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar; Written in glorious English-English which is different to American-English.

Timeline: BtVS post Season Five, Pre Season Six. Hill Street Blues, Season One.

Words: Eleven Chapters of 2500+ words.

Warnings: None really.

Summary: It was like no one Buffy knew existed anymore, that she’d been dumped in this hell-hole of a town with inadequate clothing and only seventy-five cents. Heaven just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be!

0=0=0=0

_All you need to do is take  
One step into the sky.  
Give yourself to gravity,  
Give death another try.*_

*: Free Fall; Hawkwind.

Turning away from Dawn, Buffy paused for just a moment before she started her run towards the rising sun. Her long strides soon took her to the end of the platform; stepping off Glory’s tower, she leapt into thin air and fell towards the portal that glowed beneath her. As she fell she felt the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders, she heard the wind rushing in her ears and a loud, calm, female voice that seemed to fill the entire universe.

“…and now the marks for artistic interpretation…” The voice started to recite numbers. “…Eight point five, eight point seven, eight point…”

Slowly the voice faded away and Buffy found herself caressed by a soft, warm, blackness and for a time a feeling of utter peace surrounded and engulfed her, until…

0=0=0=0

Blackness, Buffy had never known such totally, complete, dark. Slowly as her senses started to return the darkness began to take on a slightly red-pink hue. The thought suddenly came to her that the reason it was so dark was because she had her eyes tightly closed. Why did she have her eyes closed, she was dead wasn’t she? If she was dead, surely she should be in heaven so why would she have her eyes so firmly shut?

The next thing to start working were her ears, Buffy could hear someone sobbing. A woman was sobbing somewhere close by and she could hear heavy breathing like someone was nervous or frightened. So, maybe the reason she had her eyes so firmly shut was she wasn’t in heaven, she was somewhere decidedly less pleasant and she didn’t want to open her eyes and look at it. If she opened her eyes and looked around she’d have to deal with it, whatever ‘it’ was. This wasn’t fair, Buffy felt her face frown, she was dead she shouldn’t have to deal with things any more, wasn’t it supposed to be all harps and clouds and haloes and those long nightgown things angels always seemed to wear?

No, she didn’t want to look, she didn’t want to deal, she wanted to be in heaven and practice her harp solo and weren’t there supposed to be wings as well? Deciding to stay where she was with her eyes tightly closed, Buffy waited for whoever was in charge to sort things out and get her to where she was supposed to be…cloud nine perhaps? Buffy smiled.

“Stop ginning like a fool, bitch!” The voice was male, slightly Hispanic sounding and far too young.

Opening her eyes, Buffy saw a teenager…no a boy really, he couldn’t be more than Dawn’s age, standing in front of her. What was really worrying was the way he was nervously pointing a shotgun at her.

“MOVE!” He jerked the gun towards Buffy indicating that she should move.

Move where? Was Buffy’s first rather detached thought, her second thought was; if this is heaven someone somewhere has a really weird sense of humour.

“I SAID MOVE, BITCH!” Once again the youth jerked the shotgun towards Buffy’s midriff.

The boy’s voice had almost cracked when he’d shouted; there was sweat on his forehead and fear in his eyes. He was obviously of the opinion that as he had the gun (a particularly big one too) people should do as he told them; didn’t power grow from the barrel of a gun or something? The fact that Buffy appeared to be totally unimpressed by this extension of his manhood was confusing him. 

His second big mistake of the day (after getting out of bed that morning) was to jab Buffy in the stomach with the muzzle of his weapon. Too fast to be really seen Buffy’s hand caught hold of the shotgun. Squeezing the muzzle between her fingers as she pushed it away, she sealed up the muzzle tight as a drum.

Reacting in panic as he felt his weapon being pushed away, the kid instinctively pulled the trigger. The firing pin hit the base of the cartridge which went off just as it had been designed to do. Unfortunately, with the barrel tightly sealed there was nowhere for the shot and expanding gases to go.

The boy screamed as the shotgun exploded in his hands, he dropped the gun and fell to his knees and started to cry and moan as he clutched his bloody hands to his ruined face. Buffy had been almost as shocked by the sudden explosion as the boy. As she’d pushed the weapon away from herself she’d also started to move (a moving target being generally harder to hit) so she was out of the blast zone and hadn’t been injured.

As Buffy moved her eyes and her mind started to really take in her surroundings for the first time; she saw that she was in some sort of small convenience store. As she turned away from the screaming boy she noticed four people, a man with a beard another wearing a black wide brimmed hat and two older women. They had their hands in the air; Buffy’s earlier frown returned. 

Damn it all! Having jumped from Glory’s tower she’d been willing to die for her little sister and to save the world in the process and what was her reward? Her reward, or so it appeared, was to wake up in the middle of a hold-up somewhere. Buffy’s internal rant was interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming from the rear of the store.

Looking to her right, Buffy saw another boy, this one was armed with a handgun, standing in a doorway that probably led to another room behind the shop. The boy was no older than the guy with the shotgun, his trembling hands pointed the pistol in Buffy’s general direction.

“You really don’t want to do what I think you’re thinking of doing,” Buffy told the child. “Just put the gun down and run away or something.”

Even as the words were leaving her mouth, Buffy realised they’d been the wrong ones. The pistol went off and Buffy felt the wind of the bullet’s passing as it flew by her ear. Of course by then she was already moving. Ducking behind a shelf full of canned goods, she heard the kid fire twice more. One bullet hit a tin sending it spinning and tomato sauce flying in all directions, the other hit the window at the front of the store shattering it into a thousand sparkling pieces.

Dodging around the shelves, Buffy picked up a can of something, she hefted it in her hand gauging its weight. Hearing the boy move away from the door, she stood up straight, acquired her target and threw the can in less than a second. The high velocity tin of beans flew straight and true until it hit the boy on the forehead. His eyes rolled up into his head as he dropped his gun and fell to the floor. Smiling at a job well done, Buffy turned to look at the frightened storekeeper and his customers; they were all still standing wide eyed with their hands in the air against the shop counter. Buffy tried for a reassuring smile.

“You can put your hands down now,” she told them, “then maybe call the cops?”

Not waiting to see whether they complied with her suggestion, Buffy turned, walked quickly over to the door and then out into the street. Glancing up and down the city street, Buffy got an impression of a run down inner city area somewhere in the US; picking a direction she started to run as the sound of police sirens came to her ears.

0=0=0=0

“Dispatch, we have a 9-11, armed robbery in progress - see convenience store - corner of People's Drive and 124th Street…”

The radio crackled slightly as Officer Bobby Hill glanced over at his partner, Andy Renko. Picking up the radio’s microphone, Hill pressed the call button as Renko switched on the lights and siren while pressing down on the car’s accelerator with his cowboy booted foot. The patrol car was only a block away from the store and as Hill told dispatch that they were responding, Renko drove the patrol car at breakneck speed between the slower moving cars and trucks.

Screeching to a halt outside the store, the two cops pushed open their doors, drew their revolvers and ran towards the store with its broken window. Bursting through the door with their pistols up and ready to fire they came to a slow and rather baffled halt as they took in the scene before them. Dispatch had said there was an armed robbery in progress, Bobby and Andy looked at each other in confusion as they advanced on the injured kid who lay moaning and bleeding on the floor.

“Call an ambulance,” Bobby told the man he recognised as the store’s owner; he knelt down next to the kid who was covered in his own blood.

“What the hell happened here?” Renko demanded, his Texas accent getting stronger as he checked on the other ‘robber’.

Picking up the can that lay near the boy, Renko noted the half crescent mark on the kid’s forehead, he held the can next to the mark; they matched. Kicking the revolver out of the reach of the unconscious kid as he stood up, Renko turned to the store owner.

“Would any of you people like to tell me what the hell happened here?”

0=0=0=0

After running as fast as she could for about three blocks, Buffy slowed and turned into a side alley. Like all alley’s the world over this one contained piles of garbage, overflowing dumpsters and smelt of urine. This particular alley also had ‘added homeless people’ who were huddled around the ubiquitous, burning, forty-five gallon oil drum about a dozen yards away from her. They all turned to look at her suspiciously for a moment before deciding she posed no threat; then they went back to the important business of standing around the fire trying to keep themselves warm.

It was about then that Buffy realised just how cold it was. Looking up at the clear blue sky, she wondered where she was. It’d been May when she’d been in Sunnydale, here it felt like the middle of winter. Either she was in the southern hemisphere or she’d missed a few months somewhere along the way. After blowing on her hands she wrapped her arms around herself and tried to hug herself warm. She wasn’t dressed for the weather so she needed to get out of the cold, call Giles or the guys and wait for someone to pick her up. Searching her pockets, she found about seventy-five cents. Frowning, she promised that the next time she went into a life or death struggle with a hell-god she’d take more cash.

Stuffing the coins back into her pocket, Buffy walked back out onto the street and stopped on the sidewalk. Looking up and down the street again she saw what she was looking for; a line of public telephones. With a smile on her face and hope in her heart she crossed the road trying to ignore the looks she was attracting from a lot of the local men. Buffy knew she was pretty and was used to guys ‘checking her out’ but she didn’t like the way these guys were looking at her; it was almost as if she was some sort of prey for them to hunt.

Arriving at the phones the smile, that had already started to falter anyway, completely faded from Buffy’s face. Every phone was damaged in some way; she sighed heavily all the while wondering why she couldn’t have landed some place nice, with a beach maybe and warmer weather. Okay, she told herself, she still needed a phone. Once again she looked around, the absolute desolation of the area really struck home to her for the first time.

Okay, so the litter and the abandoned cars had registered before, but it was only now that they _really_ registered with her mind. Starting to get a very bad feeling about what had happened to her; Buffy began to walk quickly along the street keeping a look out for a public phone. It was another block before she found one that worked. With a sigh of relief she picked up the receiver and dialled Giles’ number. Apart from her own number and Willow’s it was the only one she’d bothered to memorise.

Feeling her heart sink, Buffy listened as the operator told her that the number she’d dialled didn’t exist. Slamming down the receiver, Buffy felt herself start to slip towards panic. Giles’ number didn’t exist? Perhaps the missing time she’d experienced was longer than she’d thought, maybe Giles had moved or gone back to England. Whatever, Buffy brightened slightly, she’d phone her sister, Dawn or one of the guys was bound to be home.

Five minutes later, Buffy walked away from the phone her head lowered as the tears trickled down her face. Once again the operator had come on the line to tell her that the number she’d called didn’t exist. It was like no one she knew existed anymore, that she’d been dumped in this hell-hole of a town with inadequate clothing and seventy-five cents. Heaven just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be!

0=0=0=0

Buffy hadn’t any idea how long she’d wandered the streets lost in her own black thoughts, but when she started taking an interest in her surroundings again, she found that it had got darker and colder. Shivering in the freezing wind that blew straight through her thin top, Buffy stood on the kerb and wondered what to do. Maybe she should find a police officer or someone who might help. Looking around hoping to see some sign of the forces of law and order, she was surprised when a car pulled up next to her. The driver leant across the passenger’s seat and rolled down the window. Looking down at the guy Buffy saw that it was a middle-aged, balding man in a rumpled business suit.

“Hey baby,” he called, “how much?”

“How much?” Buffy looked at him and frowned; how much for what?

Slowly the penny drifted down through the frozen molasses of her mind as she realised what the guy was suggesting.

“Get outta here!” Buffy snapped; the guy shrugged, rolled up his window and drove off only to stop next to another inappropriately dressed woman a little further down the street.

This time the woman he’d stopped next to got into his car and they drove off together. Quietly Buffy cursed herself, if she’d used her brains she’d have asked the guy where she was. Smiling, she laughed quietly; if she’d been Faith, she’d have dragged the guy out of his car then stolen both his car and wallet. Sometimes being insanely evil made life so much easier.

However, someone somewhere was obviously looking out for the welfare of little, lost, Californian slayers. Having walked on a few more yards, Buffy noticed light spilling from a door onto the litter strewn sidewalk. As she got closer to the light the smell of soup came to her nose making her tummy grumble and remind her she’d not eaten since yesterday. 

Standing in front of the doorway, Buffy looked up at the sign on the side of the big old church, it read; St Joseph’s Church and Mission. Hesitantly she walked towards the light, she crossed the threshold and felt the temperature start to rise. Walking further into the church she noticed how the pews had been removed and replaced by rows of tables and long benches. Here and there were little knots of homeless people sitting at the tables eating soup.

“Thank god,” Buffy sighed with relief.

“Thank god indeed,” a deep male voice came from behind her.

Turning so fast it made the priest step back half a pace, Buffy smiled with relief up at the tall, black man dressed in a clerical suit who was looking down at her warily.

“Can I help you?” he asked cautiously.

“I hope so,” Buffy didn’t need to try to look tired and desperate, she was. “I’m cold, hungry, I’ve seventy-five cents and I’ve no idea where I am…can you help me?”

0=0=0=0


	2. Chapter 2

2.

“Look at this!” exclaimed Captain Furillo as he sat behind his desk, phone held to his ear, “You got the address wrong on the warrant.”

He waved the said warrant at the two uniformed officers who were standing next to Sergeant Esterhaus in his little office.

“Captain,” Esterhaus spoke in a placating tone, “we never shoulda stopped doing these in   
pencil.”

“...so,” Furillo continued ignoring Esterhaus’ comment, “when the man _understandably_ objects to being arrested, Earps here hits him with a board!”

“We had to, boss.” Earps admitted after glancing at his partner, “We couldn't get his attention.”

“Get him out of here,” Furillo opened a desk drawer and took out a couple of dollar bills and threw them on his desktop, “Buy him breakfast,” Furillo instructed the two uniforms, “tell him we owe him one.” Furillo stood up as the two officers made a break for the door, “And don’t hurt him any more…don’t touch him,” Furillo, phone still pressed to his ear followed the officers to the door of his office, “don’t even shake his hand!”

“What!?” Furillo frowned at the sound of the voice on the phone, “Grade school and precinct visitation program, sure we have one of those.” The irony in Furillo’s voice was hardly noticeable, “We’ve had one of those for years…to _interface_ ,” Furillo stressed the word, “children with the police experience.” Furillo listened patiently to what the person on the other end of the line was saying.

“Yeah,” Furillo smiled indulgently, “well, ma’am, take my word for it, I doubt there’s a kid in the district who hasn’t _interfaced_ with the police experience.”

After exchanging a few more meaningless pleasantries with the woman on the other end of the line, Furillo got to hang up as he sat back down behind his desk. Surprisingly the phone didn’t ring again immediately and no one burst into his office expecting him to solve some unsolvable problem. For a few precious moments he was left to wonder what had happened to his world. He couldn’t believe that it was this bad when he’d joined the Chicago PD all those years ago, what had happened?

Before he’d had a chance to even start to answer his own questions a new figure appeared in his door way. Public Defender Joyce Davenport stood dressed in a smart business suit with a fur coat draped stylishly around her shoulders; her long brown hair framing her attractive face which at the moment was looking down at Furillo with hard eyes.

“All right, Furillo,” her tone of voice was as hard as her eyes, “I want him, and I want him now, where is he?”

“Who?” Furillo asked innocently.

“My client is due in court in exactly forty-five minutes,” Joyce explained, “now where is he?”

Opening his mouth to speak, Furillo was interrupted by the sound of a loud roaring growl coming from the direction of the squad room outside his office. Turning at the sound of the noise, Joyce watched in horrified fascination as a man stood up from where he’d been sitting waiting to be booked, he broke the handcuffs that had been holding his arms behind his back.

Roaring like some wild animal he made a break for the front door just before two uniformed officers jumped on him and tried to restrain him. The suspect appeared to shake the officers off like a dog shakes off water. Reacting to the developing situation more officers threw themselves at the suspect trying to hold him before he made it to the door and the outside world.

As half a dozen officers hung on to the suspect, as he moved inexorably towards the door paying as little attention to the police who were now beating on him with their night sticks as a glacier does to a grain of sand. Roaring like some primeval beast the suspect shook off his attackers sending police officers flying in all directions. Men crashed through windows, one officer’s head came into violent contact with an iron pillar; he slid to the floor leaving a smear of bright red blood on the paint work. 

Hurling people out of his way the suspect staggered towards the door, suddenly a shot rang out. The suspect staggered again but kept going. Another shot was fired, and then another and another, but still the suspect moved single-mindedly towards the door. Bursting through the door and out into the entrance lobby the suspect was met by a loud, 'BOOM!' as someone fired a riot gun.

Staggering back into the squad room the suspect tripped over his own feet and then crashed to the floor. Groaning he tried to push himself to his feet again, but it seemed like he’d inexplicably lost all his strength. His arm slipped out from under him and he fell back to the blood flecked floor as officers advanced cautiously pointing their pistols at him. Lying on the floor the suspect’s chest rose and fell several more times drawing in great lung fulls of air. Suddenly the man’s chest stopped moving and he slumped back to the floor and lay still.

“What the hell’s going on here Furillo?” Joyce Davenport turned frightened eyes onto the police captain; she’d been a public defender for several years, she’d seen a lot of strange things but this had really frightened her.

“New drug on the streets, Counsellor,” Furillo pointed out before starting to organise his men.

“It’s called ‘Polvo del Diablo,” Furillo called over his shoulder as he helped a man to his feet.

“Devil Dust?” Joyce asked checking that her Spanish was correct.

“Yeah,” Furillo paused to exchange a few words with Sergeant Esterhaus the precinct sergeant before giving Joyce his full attention. “It started to appear on The Hill a couple of months ago, we’ve no idea where it’s coming from or who’s making it. We only know it’s highly addictive and it’s worse than PCP.”

0=0=0=0

“Nineteen-eighty-one,” Buffy said quietly to herself.

Sitting on a bench in a rather run-down park a couple of blocks over from St Joseph’s, Buffy pondered the weirdness of her life; she knew she shouldn’t be surprised by what the universe threw at her, but time and again she still was.

“I’ve only just been born,” she told herself; her parents would still be married and living in their old home in LA.

The previous night Father Edward had explained where and when she was; Chicago, March, 1981. Which explained why it was so cold and miserable and run down, but it didn’t explain why she was there, however she could guess. This was just another example of the insanity that was her life. Having told Giles that if Dawn died she’d resign, she’d gone out and sacrificed herself for her little sister who wasn’t really her sister and died…and gone to Chicago. Was this someone’s idea of a cosmic joke?

Letting her mind go blank for a moment, Buffy watched as a sheet of old newspaper rolled by in the wind. At least she had some warm clothes now. Father Edward had found her a pair of jeans (that were just a little too tight, a warm, checked shirt, that was just a little too big and a warm parka which was way too big but at least she could snuggle down in it when the cold wind howled down the canyon-like streets.

The priest had also found her a bed for the night. In the morning he’d asked her if she was interested in work. Having only seventy-five cents to her name, Buffy had said yes. Could she waitress? He’d asked; Buffy replied that yes she could waitress. It was just after nine-thirty that morning when Buffy found herself outside The Dekker Diner on Dekker Street.

Walking into the diner she saw that it was full of cops drinking coffee and eating doughnuts. Asking for and finding ‘Debbie’ the lady who owned the joint, Buffy had the quickest job interview in the world and five minutes later she found she was the newest waitress at the Diner, she’d start at seven-sharp tomorrow morning. Not having anywhere else to go, Buffy had wandered back to St Joseph’s and spent the rest of the morning helping out.

Coming back to the real world, Buffy looked up and around, she’d told Father Edward that she was going for a walk and she’d be back later. He’d told her that he might know of somewhere she could rent, cheap, if she was interested. Buffy had smiled and asked him why he was being so good to her. The Priest had smiled in return and explained that he thought she had a good soul; that she’d simply fallen on hard times and needed just a little push to get her life back on track again. Buffy told him that she hoped she wouldn’t disappoint him.

Looking around the park, with its bare trees and threadbare grass, Buffy frowned. There appeared to be a lot of very masculine looking women wandering aimlessly around the park. Every few minutes a woman would walk by her bench looking as if she was about to tumble off her heels, and why were they all so tall? Buffy’s spider sense started to tingle and poke her into action, there was something wrong with this picture, but she couldn’t work out what it was.

Watching a tall woman with bubbly blonde hair walk by, Buffy was pretty sure that this one was a _real_ woman, she stood up and looked around. Abruptly she realised that there was only herself and the blonde woman around, everyone else appeared to have vanished. By now her spider sense was yelling at her that something very wrong was about to happen. Her eyes flicked back to the blonde woman who was just about to disappear around a bend in the path and into an area of overgrown bushes.

“Hey!” Buffy called as she started to walk after the woman, “Lady!?”

The woman disappeared from Buffy’s sight as she followed the path into the overgrown area. By now Buffy was almost running, she could feel something malignant in the bushes, something waiting to pounce on the woman and rip her apart.

A scream split the air and Buffy started to sprint towards the location of the sound. Her boot heels bit into the path as she ran around the bend in the track and into the overgrown area. There on the pathway the blonde woman fought with a man in a ragged overcoat. Although the woman was putting up a good fight the man appeared to be stronger than a normal man, demon strong in fact. He tossed the blonde woman to the ground and raised his foot to stamp on her head.

Hitting him in the side with a two footed flying kick, Buffy sent the assailant stumbling down the pathway but he didn’t fall down as she’d expected. He must be some sort of demon, she told herself; just for a moment Buffy wished Giles was here to tell her what sort. Telling herself not to worry about what kind of demon it was, she kicked at its head only to find the demon had grabbed hold of her ankle, she yelped with surprise as she flew through the air.

Lying on the ground, Officer Lucy Bates watched in horror as the little blonde teenager was hurled through the air to land in a bush about four yards away. Frantically she dragged the radio from her pocket, she’d only just started to call for help when the mugger kicked the radio out of her hand. Screaming as loudly as she could, Bates tried to roll away from her attacker. He moved way too fast for someone on drugs, he picked her up with one hand bringing his other fist back ready to punch her in the face. Somehow Bates knew that if that blow landed she’d never wake up again; screaming she clawed for the guy’s eyes in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable and give her back-up time to arrive.

The mugger screamed like a demon in torment as Bates raked her finger nails across his face drawing blood as she did so. Much to her surprise he dropped her with a grunt and turned away from her. Once again lying on the ground, Lucy saw the teenage girl, she was so short and the guy was so tall that she had to jump up to hit him in the face.

Hearing a wet meaty *THUMP!* as the girl’s tiny fist connected with the muggers jaw, Lucy winced, that had probably broken every bone in the girl’s hand. Much to her shock, Lucy watched the mugger stagger away from the girl as she lashed out with a vicious side kick aimed at the guy’s knee. Once again Lucy winced as she heard a sound like a branch breaking. The mugger groaned with pain and sort of started to capsize as his broken knee gave way.

“Why don’t you go down!?” Lucy heard the girl say, she sounded confused as if the mugger wasn’t playing by the rules, “Die why don’t you?” the girl added as she chopped the mugger across the windpipe with the edge of her hand.

The mugger clutched at his throat as he fell onto his back, to Lucy it looked as if the girl was going to move in and finish him off but something stopped her. For a moment she looked a little puzzled as she turned her head away from the mugger. An instant later the girl had vanished through the bushes as the sound of Lucy’s back up came to her ears.

A second or two later uniformed and disguised cops appeared all around her and fell on the mugger cuffing him and pulling him to his feet. Lucy found herself the centre of a protective ring of uniforms as the mugger was dragged away and someone called for an ambulance.

0=0=0=0

“You were lucky,” Captain Furillo told Lucy as she lay on a bed in the emergency room at Mercy Hospital.

To be honest, Lucy didn’t feel so lucky, although she’d not been seriously injured, there were no broken bones or anything, she did feel like she was one gigantic bruise.

“The mugger was on Devil Dust,” Furillo explained.

“That explains a lot,” Lucy shifted on her bed and grimaced as her body protested.

“Explains what?” Furillo wanted to know.

“The way that girl hit him, and I got in a few good licks myself,” Lucy shook her head slowly, “he shoulda gone down.”

“What can you tell me about this girl?” Furillo sat down next to Lucy’s bed.

“Short, no more than five-two,” Lucy pictured the girl in her mind, “blonde shoulder length hair, maybe a hundred pounds. It was difficult to tell she was wearing a big old army parka.” Lucy looked into Furillo’s eyes, “God, Captain she was so tiny but she just barrelled in and beat on that guy like she was some sorta Kung-Fu master or something. If she hadn’t been there I wouldn’t be here now.”

“Okay,” Furillo stood up and smiled down at her reassuringly, “if we find her we’ll be sure to say ‘thanks’ for you.”

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

3.

“…Alright, item fourteen,” Sergeant Esterhaus leant against the lectern at the front of Roll Call and watched as the day shift fidgeted in their seats. “We’ve still got a gang of juveniles on one-nineteenth street, hittin’ on old people and cashin’ their social security cheques.” Esterhaus paused as he glanced at the papers in front of him, “So, er, how about giving that situation a little extra effort.”

There were collective mutterings of approval from the members of the shift.

“Item fifteen,” Esterhaus continued with hardly a pause, “At this point in time we’ve got the same purse snatcher working Wolf from the projects on south.” Esterhaus came out from behind his lectern to take a sheet of paper from an officer in the front row. “He’s a male black, age approximately thirty, six-feet-six-inches tall, medium build. He’s further described as wearing a long blonde wig and a short cocktail dress. People,” Esterhaus put down the paper and looked around at the shift officers, “this guy should stand out in a crowd so lets not take too long catching him, eh?”

Again the shift muttered their agreement.

“Item sixteen,” Esterhaus looked at his clipboard and sighed wearily, “Devil Dust,” there was a collective groan from the shift, “this stuff is still getting onto the streets and we’ve no idea where it’s coming from.” Esterhaus eyed his officers for a moment until he was sure he had their complete attention. “Someone must be making this stuff, so, I want you to keep your eyes and ears open and shake down every dealer, addict and snitch you’ve got…we need to turn this stuff off at the source.”

“Item the last,” Esterhaus walked slowly back to his lectern, “as some of you may know the Jackson Park rapist was apprehended yesterday.” The sergeant leant his elbows on the lectern and stared out at the assembled officers, “You’ll also be glad to hear that Officer Lucy Bates was released from Mercy Hospital last night and will be returning to duty tomorrow.” There was a smattering of applause from the shift.

“Now listen up people,” Esterhaus’ voice became harsh as he pointed his finger accusingly at the assembled officers, “if it hadn’t been for the intervention of a member of the public, Officer Bates could have been seriously injured. You don’t need me to tell you what the Jackson Park rapist liked to do to his victims…” all eyes were on Esterhaus now as the officers realised what could have happened to one of their own. “So, in future officers assigned to backup or on undercover operations will be there to ‘backup’ and not be reading their newspapers, feeding their faces or flirting with the hookers. Listen people,” Esterhaus said earnestly, “one day it might be your ass on the line…think about it.”

Allowing a couple of seconds for his words to sink in, Esterhaus checked that there was nothing else to pass on.

“Alright,” he announced finally, “that’s it lets roll,” the shift officers started to get up and leave the room. “HEY!” Esterhaus’ call turned everyone’s head towards him, “Let’s be careful out there...”

0=0=0=0

Placing the cups on the counter, Buffy filled them with coffee.

“Right,” she smiled brightly at the two police officers, “what can I get you guys?”

“The usual,” the white officer of the pair didn’t even raise his eyes from his note book as he thumbed through its pages.

“The usual?” Buffy frowned.

“Renko,” his black partner nudged him in the ribs with his elbow, “where are your manners?”

The officer called Renko looked up and caught sight of Buffy for the first time and smiled as his eyes took in her face and hair.

“I do apologise,” Renko said sincerely as he put away his note book.

Bobby hill ordered their breakfasts as a wide smile slowly spread across his face.

“Anything else?” Buffy made a note on her order pad.

“When do you get off?” Renko asked hopefully, “If you don’t mind me askin’.”

“Later,” Buffy eyed the officer suspiciously before turning away to place his order.

So far the morning hadn’t been too bad, she’d arrived at half-past-six and Debbie, the woman who owned the diner had given her a uniform and explained how things worked. Then she’d watched Buffy for a while to make sure she knew what she was doing. Evidently, Buffy must have been doing okay because after about ten minutes, Debbie had wandered off back to her office.

The other girls and women who worked at the diner were friendly, in fact the atmosphere here was so much better than the place she’d worked in LA. Buffy put a lot of this down to the uniform she had to wear having not been designed by some sort of sexual deviant. Her new uniform was a bright orangey-red with two white stripes down the front. Buffy suspected that whoever had designed it had really wanted to be designing costumes for 60's sci-fi TV shows instead.

The rest of Buffy’s shift passed without incident, okay there was a lot of sexual innuendo, but no one had tried to grab her ass and most of the guys seemed to know not to take it too far. Coming to the end of her shift, Buffy changed into her street cloths and headed on out back onto the cold streets heading for St Josephs. Father Ted had told her that he might know of a room that she could rent cheaply. Okay the mission was warm and the beds weren’t that uncomfortable but it wasn’t a permanent solution, she needed to be living somewhere by herself.

As she walked along the darkening streets she could almost feel the demons and vampires hiding in the shadows. Going out at night to slay wasn’t something she could do using the Mission as a base, she needed somewhere of her own to work from. Plus, now she was working she was taking a bed from someone who might really need it. Buffy told herself she needed to get back on her feet. When she’d jumped from Glory’s tower she’d felt like she’d done everything she could to fight evil in her own time and place. To be honest in those last few minutes when she’d finally realised what she needed to do, she’d felt grateful that it would all soon be over.

But here…here things were different. Here people really needed her help; she’d tried to ignore her calling when she’d run away to LA, but that hadn’t worked out so well. Here there were some nice people trying to get by in a bad situation, they could do without being preyed on by monsters and she was just the girl that could stop those monsters…dead!

0=0=0=0

It was almost dark and Officers Hill and Renko were doing one last sweep of their area before heading off back to the precinct. Hill was driving them slowly down Hyde Avenue, a none too safe area of The Hill with more than its fair share of pimps, pushers and generally unpleasant people.

“Hey!” Renko stuck his arm out in front of Hill making the black officer start back in his seat.

“Look out, Renko!” Hill cried out as he only just managed to keep the unit under control, “What’s got you so all fired up anyway, you could have got us killed.”

“No,” Renko grinned at his partner, “you’d have saved us with your superior driving skills…”

“Look if you don’t like the way I drive…” Hill started but Renko didn’t let him finish, instead he pointed at the sidewalk again.

“Isn’t that the cute new waitress from the diner?” Renko watched as the short, blonde girl made her way uncertainly down the street.

“What?” Hill looked around until he could see what Renko was pointing at, “Hell, you’re right,” Hill gasped, “what the hell's she doing down here?”

This was a ‘black area’ of The Hill, not only would a white girl stand out, she was asking for trouble walking around by herself.

“We better check on her,” Hill reached for the switches that controlled the car’s siren, but Renko slapped his hand away.

“You wanna draw attention to us?” Renko asked as he checked himself out in the car’s rear view mirror; he slicked back his hair before putting on his uniform cap, he moved to open his door but stopped before he’d actually unlocked the door even a crack. “Hey Bobby,” he turned to give his friend a puzzled look, “do you remember what her name is?”

“Bubby, Bunny, Buffy, something like that,” Hill grinned at his partner; it was obvious to Bobby Hill that his partner was sweet on the new girl.

“Hell, you’re no help!” Renko opened his door, climbed out and ran over to where the girl stood looking up at a building before looking down at the piece of paper in her hand.

“Hey Miss!” Renko called as he ran over to where Buffy stood, “What’re you doin’ around here?” Renko asked as he got closer to Buffy and glared at a couple of street thugs who’d been moving in on the little, blonde girl.

“Officer!” Buffy turned and recognised one of the police officers who ate at the diner; she smiled to cover up the fact that she couldn’t remember his name. “Erm…Officer I’m so glad you showed up I’m totally turned around here, do you know where this address is?”

Handing over the piece of paper Father Ted had given her, Buffy watched as all the ‘Street Life’ backed off at the Cop’s approach. There were at least two demons and one vampire within fifty yards of her. Their presence made her skin crawl, it seemed to her that Giles had been right, away from the Hellmouth her senses where sharper and she was able to pick out the fiends much more easily than she could at home.

“Hell, little lady,” Renko read the address and scratched his head while pushing his cap onto the back of his head, “you’re way out here, this,” he gestured with the piece of paper, “is about three blocks west of here and another block south.”

“Oh darn,” Buffy stamped her foot in frustration, “Father Edward said he’d come with me but something came up at the last moment so…”

“Father Edward at the St Joseph’s Mission?” Renko asked, he knew the priest slightly.

“Yeah,” Buffy smiled hopefully.

“Come on,” Renko took Buffy by the arm and started to lead her over to his unit.

“Totally hold on one minute,” Buffy easily pulled her arm from Renko’s grip, “am I being arrested or something?”

“Heck no,” Renko smiled reassuringly at Buffy, “me an’ my partner are near the end of our shift an’ I thought you might like a lift.”

“A lift?” Buffy asked, “In a squad car?” 

Renko nodded.

“Totally cool!” Buffy’s face split into a big smile; this sounded so much better than the last time she’d been in a police car; okay, the cops here might be a little rough around the edges but they were so much nicer than the Sunnydale cops.

0=0=0=0

It didn’t take Bobby Hill long to drive them around to the address on Buffy’s piece of paper. Stopping outside the big, old brown-stone, Buffy looked out of the rear window of the squad car and up at the house, it didn’t look too bad in fact Buffy started to worry that she wouldn’t be able to afford to live there on a waitress’ pay-check.

“You want one of us to walk you to the door?” Renko asked hopefully.

Buffy was about to say ‘no thank-you’ when she noticed the hopeful look in the Texan cop’s eye.

“Yes, Officer Renko,” Buffy replied, “that would be very kind of you.”

Getting out of the car, Buffy noticed the smirk on Officer Hill's face, obviously Renko did this sort of thing a lot. Shrugging her shoulders under her parka, Buffy walked up the stairs to the front door and rang the door bell. It took a minute or so for someone to answer the door, when they did Buffy saw a dark haired woman in her mid to late forties.

“Mrs McLoughlin?” Buffy asked tentatively, from what she could see, the inside of the building looked like something out of the sixties. “I’m Buffy Summers, Father Edward sent me.”

At the sound of the Priest’s name the scowl that had been on the woman’s face vanished to be replaced by a bright smile.

“Oh you’ll be one of the Father’s waifs and strays, then?” Mrs McLoughlin said as she ushered Buffy into the hall, she gave Renko a dark look however, “You can shut the door and wait here,” she told him. “Now, it’ll be the room you’ll be wanting to look at?”

With her hand on Buffy’s arm, Mrs McLoughlin led Buffy up a couple of flights of stairs to a room at the back of the house. Unlocking the door Mrs McLoughlin let Buffy into the room. 

Standing there just a couple of feet inside the room, Buffy saw that it wasn’t that much different to the room she’d found herself back in LA. Where this room differed from her previous room was that it was cleaner and had better furniture, there were even pictures on the wall.

“Do you like it dear?” Mrs McLoughlin asked, “If you want it I’ll have to ask for the rent one month in advance.”

“It’s very nice, ma’am,” Buffy turned to look at the Irish-American woman, “but I’m not sure I can afford it.”

“Oh don’t you be worrying about that,” Mrs McLoughlin, “as you’re one of the Father’s special cases we’ll see what we can do…”

“Oh!” Buffy remembered something and started to search in her pockets, eventually she found what she was looking for, “Here,” she held out the envelope full of cash that Father Ted had given her as a loan to cover rent, “he loaned me this, will it be enough?”

“I’m sure it will,” Mrs McLoughlin took the envelope but made no effort to open it, “now when would you like to move in?”

“Just like that?” Buffy asked incredulously, “You don’t want to ask me anything?”

“Well you see,” Mrs McLoughlin crossed her arms under her ample bust, “if Father Ted says you’re a right one then that’s good enough for me. And I’m not a nosey Parker to be askin’ after a person’s past, I sure if you want to tell me about it you will in your own sweet time…now when would you like to move in?”

“Oh!” Buffy found her eyes starting to tear up; she’d only been in this world a couple of days and everyone was being so nice to her, she sat down on the bed and buried her face in her hands.

All the stress of the days before she’d died seemed to be catching up with her, her mother dying, nearly losing her sister and then there was the shock of appearing in this past world. Letting the tears out, Buffy felt Mrs McLoughlin sit down on the bed beside her and put an arm around her shoulder.

“There, there, luv,” the woman said quietly as she held on to Buffy, “everything will work out all right, you just wait and see.”

Buffy tried to answer but she couldn’t get the words out, Mrs McLoughlin passed her a tissue.

“Here, dry your eyes,” Mrs McLoughlin said softly, “now that fella downstairs is he your boyfriend because I don’t allow men in the rooms after six o’clock in the evenings.”

0=0=0=0


	4. Chapter 4

4.

It was now nearly three weeks since Buffy had stared working at the Dekker Diner. Having received her first two pay-checks, Buffy was able to start to pay Mrs McLoughlin her rent; she’d also tried to pay Father Ted back for the loan he’d given her so she could rent the room at Mrs McLoughlin’s boarding house. The priest had refused all of Buffy’s attempts to pay him back, so, Buffy decided to repay him by helping out at The Mission two or three nights a week.

Not only did Buffy enjoy working at St Joseph’s it was a useful source of information about what was happening in the local demon community. As usual Buffy found out that outside of the influence of the Hellmouth, demons weren’t necessarily evil. Even in Sunnydale there were demons who only wanted to live quietly and while their habits might be termed ‘gross’ they were no real threat to people. This was how it was on The Hill (as she’d learnt to call it); most demons just wanted a quiet life untroubled by slayers and people messing with black magic. 

Generally, Buffy left these demons alone; she simply warned them that she was near and was keeping an eye on them. Unfortunately places like The Hill also attracted more than its fair share of vampires and those demons who enjoyed dressing in human entrails. These were the creatures that Buffy hunted at night after she’d finished work. The late shift at the diner was best. The diner closed at about ten-thirty which meant she was out and on her way home before eleven.

Instead of going straight home, Buffy would fade into the back streets and start to thin out the local creatures of the night. So far she was killing at least one vampire a night, the previous Saturday she’d staked three in one fight. Every two or three nights a demon would rise to challenge her; so far she’d been able to kill the demons she fought quite easily but she missed having Giles to tell her about any really dangerous demons that might need something more than the old kitchen knife she carried to kill it. Today Buffy was on the early shift starting at seven in the morning. It was now about twelve-thirty and the local cops from Hill Street Precinct were just starting to come in for their midday break.

“How’s my two favourite cops?” Buffy asked as she filled Bobby’s and Andy’s coffee cups.

“I’m fine,” Bobby Hill replied to Buffy’s cheery greeting, “Cowboy? I’m not to sure of.”

“She hit me when I wasn’t looking,” Andy Renko, known to his friends as ‘Cowboy’ replied as he tried to keep the right side of his face turned away from Buffy.

“Okay,” Buffy smiled uncertainly, “I’ll totally bite, who’s ‘she’ and why did she hit you…we’ll go into why you weren’t looking later.”

“Go on Renko,” Bobby smirked, “show her…” Andy turned his face further away so that he was sitting almost side on to the counter. “Look,” Bobby said with a sigh, “we got this call to an apartment up on the Heights, the neighbours reported ‘animal noises’…”

“Animal noises?” Buffy scowled a little, “Like from an apartment…what sort of animals?”

“Chickens, goats,” Bobby replied with a shrug, “anyway, we got up there and got the woman who lived there to open the door. Of course she denied having animals in her apartment although we could plainly hear them and then she slammed the door in our faces.”

“I can tell it didn’t end there,” Buffy got her order pad out to make it look as if she was taking Bobby and Andy’s order (Debbie, the owner, was nice but she did expect you to work not gossip).

“So we had to break down the door to check it out,” Bobby continued with a world weary sigh, “in the struggle after getting in she took old Cowboy’s nightstick and whacked him up side his head with it…”

“Assaulted with my own baton,” Andy moaned; as he spoke he forgot he was trying to keep his bruised face turned away from Buffy, when he turned to speak she got to see the livid bruise that covered most of the right side of Renko’s face.

“Oouch!” Buffy reached out and touched Renko’s face with gentle fingers, “Hey that looks bad, have you been checked out at the hospital?”

“For this?” Renko laughed as he gestured with his hand to his face, “This is nothing I…”

“Hey!” Buffy interrupted him, “That’s a head injury you might have a concussion or something.”

“If Renko had a concussion I doubt anyone would notice,” Bobby laughed gently at his partner’s misfortune.

“You think?” Renko ignored what Bobby had said and concentrated on Buffy.

“Yeah, sure,” Buffy’s eyes moved to Bobby, “Bobby you make sure he gets checked out by the paramedics first thing this afternoon…now, what do you guys wanna order?”

Having given Buffy their lunch order the two cops watched Buffy’s butt as she walked away from them.

“Y’know Renko,” Bobby spoke quietly, “maybe you should get hit upside the head more often.”

“What do you mean?” Renko wanted to know as he enjoyed the view and sipped his coffee.

“Well,” Bobby smirked again at his friend, “that has to be the first time Buffy’s touched you other than to slap your hand away from her butt!”

“Hey, you’re right,” Renko’s hand went to his face as he remembered Buffy gentle fingers as they stroked his cheek, “maybe she’s weakening after all.”

Renko’s attempts at getting Buffy to go on a date with him were the subject of much humour around the Precinct House.

“Dream-on, Cowboy,” Bobby lifted his coffee cup to his lips before repeating, “dream-on.”

0=0=0=0

The lunchtime rush was almost over and Buffy was looking forward to her own lunchbreak. After she’d had her break she’d have another hour or so and then she could go home. Today she wasn’t going straight home; having arrived in Chicago dressed in the clothes she’d gone out to fight Glory in, she didn’t have much to wear. Okay, Father Ted had given her a pair of jeans and an old army parka but she needed stuff. 

The first things she’d bought was more underwear, but as she spent most of her day working and had no social life, casual clothes weren’t a priority. However, today that was going to change, she’d seen a couple of shops where the prices weren’t too high and the fashions weren’t too retro (Buffy ignored the fact that ‘retro’ was in fact cutting edge fashion in the here and now) for her to wear. With these happy thoughts of being able to buy at least some new clothes (and maybe a new pair of shoes), Buffy didn’t notice the Hispanic youth approach her as she put some money in the till.

“Hand over the money, bitch!” demanded the youth as he pulled a large revolver from the pocket of his jacket.

Looking up at the youth, Buffy saw that he couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen years old, quite old enough to shoot her with the gun he held in his trembling hand. Looking at his frightened face she saw the beads of sweat on his brow and the way his desperate eyes wouldn’t settle on any one thing as they darted around the diner. Buffy also saw the way his hand shook so violently that she was worried the gun might go off by accident.

“Let me think about that…” Buffy slammed the till draw shut with all the finality of a tomb door swigging closed, “…like, no!”

The youthful robber looked at Buffy in horror, this hadn’t been part of his plan at all; he had the gun the stupid little bitch should be doing what he told her to.

“Erm,” Buffy leaned towards the robber and spoke to him confidentially, “you do know this place is full of cops don’t you?”

The noise level in the diner had dropped dramatically as soon as people had noticed the youth and his gun; Buffy’s sensitive ears could pick out the unmistakeable sound of cops drawing and cocking their pistols.

“N-n-noo!” Wailed the youth, “Y-you’ve gotta give me the cash!”

“Totally not gonna happen,” Buffy replied sympathetically, she held out her hand towards the robber, “now why don’t you give me your gun instead then I’m sure one of these nice officers will take you to a comfy cell where you can sleep whatever you’ve been taking, off.”

“No-no-no-no!” the youth insisted, “I’ve gotta have the money! Hand it over bitch!”

“Hey,” Buffy tone had turned a little sharper, “will you totally stop calling me a ‘b-i-t-c-h?” Buffy spelt the word out; this guy looked as if he was going lose whatever grip he still had on reality and do something really stupid, or, the cops would shoot him.

Lunging at the youth’s gun hand, Buffy grabbed his wrist and pushed the gun away from herself. As she made her move several cops holstered their weapons and moved in to take the guy down. Just as she thought she’d defused the situation, Buffy felt herself being pulled off her feet and dragged across the counter. It was about as Buffy was being pulled roughly onto the customer side of the counter that the first cop tackled the youth. The cop came in on the guy’s left and dived right into the youth’s fist. The cop’s face exploded in a welter of blood as the youth punched him with superhuman strength.

Looking at the youth in horror, Buffy saw that his eyes had gone completely red. This was wrong; she’d not got any ‘demon-vibe’ off him when he’d walked in. In fact her spider sense was telling her that the youth was one-hundred percent human. All these thoughts went through Buffy’s mind as she broke the youth’s hold on her arm. Staggering back and away from the teenager, Buffy saw Cops pile in from left and right. For a moment she thought they’d got him under control, but she was wrong.

Very soon cops were flying through the air to crash land on the furniture, Buffy got knocked to the floor by a flying policeman, looking up she saw the youth, now free of cops, making his way towards the till. Taking her chance, Buffy directed a vicious side kick at the teenager’s knee joint from where she lay on the floor. Hearing the guy's knee break, Buffy winced with sympathetic pain even as she got back to her feet. Even with one knee almost certainly ruined the youth was still standing, in fact he threw the cash register at Buffy who caught it and threw it back over the counter.

Screaming in rage at losing his prize the teenager launched himself at Buffy intent on ripping her apart. The heel of her hand flattened the youth’s nose all over his face but he still came on, his claw like hands reaching for her throat. A great roaring, inhuman wail issued from his mouth as Buffy hit him again and again. But still he wouldn’t go down; memories of saving the woman in the park came back to Buffy’s mind. They both must have been victims of the Devil Dust drug that all the cops were talking about.

Buffy fended off one hand but the other latched itself round her throat and started to squeeze. Distracted for a moment, she allowed the other hand to lock in place and start to squeeze the life out of her. Vaguely aware of a cop frantically beating the teenager on the back and head with his night stick, but it didn’t appear to do much good. Realising there was no other way out, Buffy broke first one of her assailant’s arms then the other. Now with both arms hanging uselessly at his side he tried to rip out her throat with his teeth. Buffy didn’t want to do it, but she saw no other way out. Making a fist she punched the teenager in the solar plexus, the power she’d put into that punch should have ruptured all the guy’s internal organs and killed him, but Buffy was shocked to see him still breathing as he lay on the floor.

“Crap!” Buffy breathed as she rubbed her neck with her free hand, the other one was grasping hold of the counter to stop herself from falling down.

Slowly she became aware of cops groaning and getting to there feet, suddenly Debbie the owner of the diner was at her side.

“You okay, honey?” Debbie asked her voice full of concern.

“I’ll live,” Buffy nodded before gesturing to the youth, “but I’m not sure about him.”

0=0=0=0

“Furillo!” Public Defender Davenport stormed into Captain Furillo’s office, “Have you seen what your stormtroopers have done to my client?” Davenport raged not giving Furillo time to reply, “Well I’ll tell you…two broken arms, a smashed knee, broken nose a jaw fractured in at least two places and more broken ribs than unbroken ones! How do you explain that?”

“And good afternoon to you Councillor,” Frank Furillo replied calmly, “and before you continue to accuse my men of brutality I think you should know that Victor Moreno was under the influence of Devil Dust…”

“But that doesn’t excuse your men from…” Joyce Davenport started to calm down, now she was in possession of this piece of intelligence she had some sympathy with the cops who’d tried to arrest Moreno.

“And it wasn’t my men who inflicted most of the injuries on the Moreno boy,” the ends of Furillo’s lips twitched as he tried to suppress a totally inappropriate smile.

“Then who’s responsible,” Joyce Davenport demanded, “one of those Dekker Street vigilantes I’m betting…”

The sound of spontaneous applause reached Furillo’s and Davenport’s ears as Buffy was escorted into the squad room.

“No,” Furillo did in fact smile at his lover’s discomfort, “most of the damage was done by her.”

“WHAT!?” Joyce couldn’t help but yell eliciting a wince from Furillo and a few curious looks from the cops nearest his office; “Are you going to try and tell me that she,” Joyce pointed an incredulous finger at Buffy, “did all that to Victor Moreno?” For a moment Joyce’s mouth moved but no sound came out, “B-but she can’t be more than five foot tall! What are you trying to pull Frank?”

“Nothing, Councillor,” Frank Furillo replied innocently, “if you like you can be there when I interview her…she might need a good lawyer.”

“You’re going to charge her?” Joyce asked immediately changing her allegiance from Moreno to Buffy.

“I don’t know yet,” Furillo moved towards his door and called out to his station sergeant, “Phil, put Miss Summers into Interview One, please.”

Phil Esterhaus nodded and led Buffy towards the interview room.

“Frank,” Joyce said in a reasonable tone her earlier anger having subsided, “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull but no one’s going to believe that that little girl inflicted all those injuries on Moreno.”

“Well, Joyce,” Furillo’s voice was still measured and infuriatingly calm, “we’ll see after the incident has been fully investigated, until then I’ve got an open mind.” He looked directly into Joyce’s eyes, “Will you sit in on the interview just in case Miss Summers needs legal representation?"

“I suppose so, Frank,” Joyce nodded, “but this isn’t going fly. If you try to charge her with anything it’s going to be laughed out of court. My god, Frank, she’s tiny!”

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

5.

“Am I like, in trouble?” Buffy asked as the guy in the smart suit opened the door and walked into the ‘interview’ room, “Because if I am I think I should totally have a lawyer.”

“As far as I’m aware, you’re not in any trouble, Miss Summers,” the man in the suit smiled down at Buffy, “I’m Captain Furillo and this,” he turned to the attractive woman in the conservative skirt and jacket who’d been standing in the door way, “is Public Defender Davenport, she’s agreed to sit in and make sure we don’t trample on any of your civil rights…”

Buffy caught the ghost of a smile that played around Furillo’s lips for a moment. Next she glanced at Davenport and saw just a hint of annoyance at Furillo’s words; Buffy guessed that someone, like an Italian-American police Captain for instance, wouldn’t be getting ‘any’ tonight because of that little dig.

“Hi,” Buffy turned towards Joyce and held out her hand, “I’m Buffy Summers, and do the police totally trample on people’s civil rights a lot round here?”

“Only sometimes,” Joyce took Buffy’s hand and shook it, “it depends how desperate they are to close a case.”

“Now, Miss Summers…” Furillo began after sitting down across the battered old table from her, Joyce walked around the table and sat down next to Buffy..

“Call me Buffy,” Buffy interrupted, “Ms Summers makes me sound like my Mom…”

“And your mother is…?” Furillo fished for some background on this pretty young woman.

“Dead…” Buffy completed Furillo’s sentence for him, “…she died a few weeks before I came to Chicago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Furillo said with genuine concern, “so how long have you been in Chicago?”

“Four or five weeks…” Buffy took a deep breath and gave Furillo a tired smile, “…look, Captain, I know you’re trying to be nice but I’d totally like to get on with this and go home…”

Buffy really wanted to go home, shower and change and then get out on the street and find out what she could about this Devil Dust that appeared to be able to turn people into real live monsters.

“I left LA just after my mother died,” Buffy explained bending the truth only a little, “I arrived here like four or five weeks ago.” Buffy paused for a moment, “I was a wreck, what with my mother dying,” Buffy glanced at Furillo and saw a frown of concern on his face, “but I was lucky and met some people who were willing to help, y’know Father Edward at the St Joseph’s Mission?”

“I do,” Furillo nodded.

“Well, he totally helped me find a job and somewhere to live,” Buffy smiled, “I’m a waitress at the Dekker Diner, do you know it?”

“Yes I do,” again Furillo nodded, he seemed happy to let Buffy talk.

“Right, okay, I was at work and it was just after the lunch time rush, when this teenager came in and totally pointed a gun at me…” Buffy began but was distracted by Joyce Davenport who touched her on her arm; the attorney leaned over so she could whisper in Buffy’s ear.

“Miss Summers,” Joyce whispered, “be careful what you say, in fact only tell the Captain what you _really_ think he needs to know, understand?”

“Yeah, sure, totally with you,” Buffy nodded as Joyce sat back up straight, “Like I was saying, Captain, this guy came in and pointed a gun at me; he wanted all the money from the cash register. I said ‘no’ and tried to point out that the place was full of cops.”

“Is that when the fight started?” Furillo looked from Buffy to Davenport and back again.

“No,” Buffy smiled brightly playing the Socal-girl, airhead card for all it was worth, “the fight started after I’d tried to take the gun away from him and he’d pulled me over the counter…”

“Let me get this straight, Miss Summers,” Furillo said slowly, “you tried to take the gun away from him?”

“Yep?” Buffy stared at Furillo in apparent confusion for just a moment before asking, “Should I not have?”

“It’s not normally recommended, Miss Summers…” Furillo replied.

“Please, it’s Buffy,” Buffy gave Furillo one of her most empty headed smiles, “and it’s not?”

“No,” Furillo shook his head, “you could have been killed.”

“I could?” Buffy tried to look as if the thought had never entered her mind, “Wow…I’ll try and remember that for next time.”

Joyce giggled quietly, then sobered quickly, “Sorry,” she apologised. 

“Sooo,” Buffy glanced at Joyce before continuing with her story, “that’s when I hit him.”

Furillo sat there and waited for Buffy to say more, when she didn’t he rested his elbows on the table and leaned towards her.

“You did more than just hit him Mis…Buffy…”

It was Joyce’s turn to interrupt Furillo now.

“Will you be charging Miss Summers with anything, Captain?” Joyce asked coldly, “Because if you are I suggest you explain to Buffy about her Miranda rights…”

“Be careful Captain,” Buffy said in a loud whisper, “or you’ll totally not be getting any for quite some time…” both Furillo and Joyce turned to stare at Buffy, “…like you’re totally _seeing_ each other, right?”

Furillo coughed into his fist before adjusting his tie, while Joyce shifted uncomfortably on her chair.

“That’s…” 

“Not important right now,” Buffy nodded her understanding after butting in again. “Okay,” she continued, “I might have hit him more than once…may be three or four times?”

“From what the officers on the scene said you must have hit him more than three or four times,” Furillo explained, “what I can’t understand is how someone who is frankly as…”

“Petite?” Buffy suggested, “I hate being called ‘short’.”

“Okay as ‘petite’ as yourself, could cause someone so much damage,” Furillo finally got to the end of his sentence.

“Luck?” Buffy suggested.

“Luck?” Furillo replied quizzically.

“I think we should finish this interview now,” Joyce replied, “as I see it, Miss Summers…” Joyce noticed Buffy open her mouth to complain about being called ‘Miss Summers’ again, “…I’m sorry, ‘Buffy’, bravely tackled an armed robber and held him until the police arrived, I didn’t think even this police department would have a problem with that, especially after setting up the Dekker Avenue Citizens Watch…”

The Dekker Avenue Citizens Watch, or the Dekker Avenue Vigilantes as Joyce preferred to call them, wasn’t something Joyce approved of. Sayings about certain Italian-American police captains and the petards they’d been hoisted on sprang to her mind. 

“Buffy,” Joyce turned to Buffy and produced her business card from her handbag, “take this and if you ever need my help just call, alright?”

“Sure,” Buffy took the card and looked at it as if she had trouble reading the words printed on it, “thanks…can I go home now?”

“Yes,” Furillo stood up indicating that the interview was over; he hadn’t found out as much as he’d hoped for, however…

However, he had no cause to hold Buffy Summers any longer and he doubted that there was anything deeper to this than a girl, who obviously knew some sort of martial art, doing her civic duty. Just for a moment he wondered if Buffy had had anything to do with Lucy Bates being attacked. But, one look at Buffy's happy but empty headed smile told him the girl couldn't have beaten off the Jackson Park rapist however good her fighting skills might be.

“Buffy,” Furillo shook Buffy’s hand as he led her to the door and noted that she didn't appear to have an overly firm grip at least not one that you'd imagine a girl who worked hard for a living might have, “as Miss Davenport says you’re a very brave young woman, there could be a Civilian Commendation in this for you…”

“I’d rather there wasn’t,” Buffy replied quickly, she didn’t want her face splashed all over the newspapers, “I mean,” Buffy hesitated as she thought up a good reason not to get an award, “My Mom totally taught me that doing the right thing was its own reward.”

“Well, at least let us drive you home,” Furillo glanced over Buffy’s head and shared a look with Joyce.

“Thanks,” Buffy smiled pleasantly and let herself be led out into the squad room and handed over to Sergeant Esterhaus.

0=0=0=0

Sergeant Goldblume walked into the squad room to find a number of patrol officers who should be out in their units, congregated around a short, pretty, blonde girl in a waitress’ uniform. He frowned for a moment wondering what was going on. Walking further into the squad room he went over to the table where the coffee was and started to pour himself a cup of the strong brew.

“Henry,” a familiar voice came form behind him; Goldblume turned to see Howard Hunter the Lieutenant in command of the precinct’s Swat Team join him at the table.

“Howard,” Henry returned the greeting warily, Howard and himself didn’t see eye to eye on…well, they didn’t see eye to eye on most things; Henry gestured with his coffee cup to the knot of officers around the waitress, “What’s going on there?”

“What?” Howard turned to look over to where Buffy smiled up at all the uniformed officers who were surrounding her and showering her with compliments, “Ooooh!” Howard chuckled, “Of course you wouldn’t have heard…” Howard sipped his own coffee and grimaced before putting his cup down, “That fine example of American Womanhood is the young woman who single handedly, I repeat, single handedly disarmed a Latin-American malcontent who was trying to rob the Dekker Diner…” Howard smiled and sighed proudly, “…makes you proud to be American.”

“Yes Howard,” Henry rolled his eyes before he walked away leaving Howard to his own thoughts.

Standing there with his unlit pipe clamped between his teeth, Howard watched the girl with a fixed grin on his face. He felt sure there was more to this girl than met the eye, he’d listened to what the officers at the diner had said about what had really happened and not what they'd be putting in their reports. The girl hadn’t just disarmed the robber, she’d beaten him half to death, no one had a problem with that and would change their statements to protect the girl. If the perp hadn’t been high on Devil Dust he would be dead by now, in fact the doctors at the hospital were saying that the perp wouldn’t last the night.

Turning away as Bobby Hill and that cowboy Renko led the girl out of the squad room, Howard started to put two and two together. Devil Dust was so obviously some thing of demonic or magical manufacture and normal policing methods weren’t going to track down its makers. He doubted that the place where the drug was being made was even on this plain of existence.

So, what was this girl? The Slayer? He really needed to find this out. If she was the Slayer why hadn’t her Watcher contacted him, after all he was the Council’s representative in Chicago. In fact why hadn’t the Council informed him they were sending the Slayer to Chicago? This was just so typical of those old fools in London; it would never do to let the right hand know what the left was doing. No, they’d probably come to him when everything had gone wrong and they needed him to save their stuck up, Limey noses!

The Council had come to him and asked him to work for them not long after Howard had left the Chicago Police Academy. He’d been a rookie patrolman when his partner had been killed by what he later found out was a vampire. The world of the supernatural had come as a nasty shock to Howard Hunter, but as with most things in his life he'd stepped up to do what he saw as his duty. When the Council had offered him the chance of fighting back against the, obviously communist inspired forces of darkness, he’d grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

He wasn’t a Watcher and he’d never expected to ever get a chance to work with a real live Slayer. His job with the Chicago PD put him in a position to keep an eye on other worldy activity in one of Chicago’s worst areas. He wasn’t even supposed to fight, but armed with the knowledge that being involved with the Council provided him, he did. His official duty was to send monthly reports to London on demonic activity in Chicago, which he did like clock work and every month he would receive a small cheque in payment for his work. But now things looked like they might get interesting, he’d need to find out all he could about this seemingly harmless waitress, and the place to start was Hill and Renko.

0=0=0=0

Having been driven home by Bobby and Andy, who were still her two most favourite cops; Buffy had showered, changed and eaten a light snack before heading out onto the darkening streets of the Hill. Wanting to find out as much as she could about this Devil Dust she went around to several of the demon bars she knew in the area. At each place it was the same, it didn’t matter how much she threatened or beat demons up no one was going to tell her where the Devil Dust was coming from, the demons were all too frightened.

The fact that the demons were frightened told her something; as she’d pointed out in the past, when the scary things got scared it wasn’t good. It was at times like this she really missed Giles and her friends. They were always (well mostly always) there to help her or give her some moral support; she missed her mom most of all and she found she was really missing her sister. Poor Dawnie, who was looking after her now? Well, Buffy laughed at herself, that was a ‘no brainer’, Willow and Tara would look out for her, particularly Tara, there was something particularly motherly and caring about that girl; look how she acted around Willow. Buffy sighed tiredly and wished she could find a boyfriend as caring as Tara.

Coming out of her thoughts about home, Buffy found she’d wandered into an alley in one of the _really_ bad parts of The Hill. Recognising it as an area that the police rarely patrolled at night, Buffy started to retrace her steps. Yes there were vampires and demons, but there were human monsters who were as bad if not worse than some of the demons. Not wanting to get involved in another fight and possibly taken to the precinct house so soon after today’s little adventure, Buffy decided that she was going home to her bed, plus she had another early shift tomorrow.

It was as she was reaching the entrance to he alley that she felt it; a demonic presence in amongst the dumpsters and their overflowing piles of garbage. Coming to a halt, Buffy cocked her head and listened, she filtered out the sounds made by the city and concentrated on the sounds made by animals and _things_. Bringing her fists up, she stepped carefully towards a dumpster from where she’d heard some really gross sounding noises.

Slowly, Buffy advanced on the dumpster all the time wondering what she’d be facing. Now standing next to the overflowing and evil smelling dumpster, Buffy reached out her hand and grasped the cold metal of the waste container. Heaving it out of the way, she suddenly found herself staring down the barrel of a police revolver. The demon holding the gun was short, not much taller than she was, he wore jeans, and a lumberjack shirt under a denim jacket, this sartorial elegance was completed by a woollen hat, an unshaven face and a snarling mouth. Still pointing the gun at her the demon grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her up against the dumpster she’d just moved.

“Spread ‘em, hair ball!” Demanded the demon.

0=0=0=0


	6. Chapter 6

6.

“But we’ve only just met!” Buffy replied as she punched the demon in his face making him drop his gun, “I’m not spreading anything until after I’ve at least been taken to the movies and bought dinner.” Buffy followed up her punch by tossing the demon effortlessly across the alley way, “And dinner’s got to be in a _nice_ restaurant…” Picking the demon up she kneed him in the stomach before twisting his arm up around the back of his neck and smashing the creature’s face into the alley wall, “…followed by a little dancing…” Buffy continued with her description of her perfect date, “…and then, _maybe_ I _might_ consider spreading them.”

“Get offa me lady,” came the demon’s muffled cry, “I’m a cop!”

“A cop, huh?” Buffy replied disbelievingly, “Get outta here! A cop?” she repeated, “Okay if you’re a cop lets see some ID.”

Using his free arm the demon pulled something out from under his jacket and held it up for Buffy to see; sure enough it was a detective’s shield.

“Oh!” Buffy said in surprise before snatching the badge out of the demon’s hand.

Studying the demon’s shield, Buffy frowned in confusion, a detective demon? No, that couldn’t be…but…but he had pulled a gun on her which wasn’t very demony and the shield did look genuine.

“Okay,” Buffy said warily as she let the demon go and pushed herself away from him, “so maybe you’re a cop…a demon detective?”

Released from Buffy’s iron grip the demon worked the pain out of his shoulder.

“Me a demon?” he laughed innocently, “Just what kinda crazy person are you anyway?”

“You don’t fool me,” Buffy threw the demon back his badge; “I’m the sort of ‘crazy person’ that rips the arms off _bozos_ like you.”

“You are?” the demon picked up his shield and put it away under his jacket, he watched Buffy suspiciously, “Exactly what sorta hairball is that?”

“Hairball, huh?” Buffy took a threatening step towards the demon, who immediately took a step away from her.

“Okay!” the demon held his hands up in a defensive gesture, “maybe you’re not a hairball, okay?” The demon admitted, he tried to laugh Buffy’s suspicions off, “But where are ya getting this demon crap from?”

“Because I’m The Slayer!” before the demon could react, she had him by the throat and had pushed him up against the wall again, “So don’t jerk me around, right?”

“Okay, okay,” the demon called tiredly, “enough with the bodily violence already.”

A Jewish, police, demon? Buffy shook her head as she let the cop-demon go, life was full of little surprises just now so anything was possible.

“So, you’re the slayer,” the demon looked her up and down, “I thought you’d be taller and not as pretty.”

“Was that a compliment?” Buffy asked uncertainly, “Coz if it was you might want to work on it a little.”

“Whatever,” the detective demon shrugged, he held out his hand to Buffy, “Detective Mick Belker by the way.”

“Buffy Summers,” Buffy took Belker’s hand and shook it.

“Buffy?” Belker pulled a disbelieving face.

“Don’t disrespect the name, my mom gave me that name so…?” Buffy left the threat hanging.

“Okay,” once again Belker lifted his hands in a placatory gesture, before looking at Buffy closely, “Hey,” he smiled, “you’re the new waitress at the Dekker Diner, you took down that punk today. Good piece of work,” Belker admitted grudgingly, “but now I know you’re the slayer I know how you did it.”

“Hey,” Buffy crossed her arms defensively, “he totally had a gun you know?”

“And he was high on Devil Dust,” Belker agreed as he bent to pick up his own revolver.

“Yeah,” Buffy tensed as Belker picked up his weapon, then she relaxed again as she saw him put it away out of sight, “what about that stuff?”

“Come on,” Belker started to head for the mouth of the alley, “I’ll buy you a coffee…”

“A coffee?” Buffy hurried off after the demon, “You do know I’m still not ‘spreading ‘em’, not for just a cup of coffee, right?”

0=0=0=0

“So, Detective-demon Belker,” Buffy lifted her coffee cup to her lips and sipped, she was pleasantly surprised, the coffee wasn’t half bad, “what do you know about this Devil Dust?”

The coffee bar was long and thin, with a counter all down one side and small booths, which gave the people sitting in them some privacy. The customers were what you might expect for a place situated in the not-so-good part of town; hookers, their ‘Johns’ and other shady characters. 

“We’re working together now?” Belker wanted to know, “You’re not going to just pump me for information then slay me when my back’s turned?”

“I’m not going to pump you for anything!” Buffy gasped before adding, “And slaying’s off the table…for now.” 

Putting down her cup she looked deeply into Belker’s eyes and just for a moment she felt like she was falling. Grabbing hold of the edge of the table, she caught herself; don’t look into his eyes, she warned herself. Blinking she looked at Belker while avoiding eye contact.

“Devil Dust,” Buffy continued in a business-like voice, “talk!”

“Okay,” Belker shrugged, “I’ll tell you what I know; Devil Dust appeared on the streets two, maybe three months ago.” Belker sipped his own coffee, “It’s highly addictive, one hit and you’re hooked. Addicts take increasingly large doses until they flip-out and go homicidal. While they’re ‘flipped-out’ they have preternatural strength, like you’ve seen.”

“Okay,” Buffy nodded still being careful not to look into Belker’s eyes, “so where’s it coming from?”

“Don’t know,” Belker shrugged his not very wide shoulders, “I’ve ‘questioned’ several dealers an’ they all say the same thing…”

“ _Questioned_?” Buffy shook her head this was no time to go off at a tangent, “So, what did these dealers say?”

“The Dust just turns up and they felt compelled to sell it,” Belker explained.

“Sounds like magic,” Buffy replied.

“That’s what I thought,” agreed Belker.

“So what’s the ‘game plan’?” Buffy wanted to know.

“Huh?” Belker looked at her trying to catch her eye.

“Don’t do that,” Buffy started to sound angry.

“Do what?” Belker held out his hands helplessly.

“That eye thing,” Buffy replied, Belker was making her feel all hot and itchy in places she shouldn’t; even if this guy was human he so wasn’t her type.

“What eye thing?” Belker persisted.

“Look lets totally talk about this Dust stuff,” Buffy took a deep breath and calmed down, “So, the game plan. What do you think the demon or whoever hopes to gain from ‘Flipping’ all these people ‘out’?”

“Best I can work out is it isn’t a demon,” Belker finished his coffee noisily.

“Not a demon?” Buffy asked sceptically. 

“No,” Belker shook his head, “best I can work out its profit driven.”

“What?” Buffy didn’t really believe Belker; this had to be part of a bigger demonic plan to take over the city, “Explain.”

“Look,” Belker started to count off points on his fingers, “the stuff just turns up which you agree sounds like magic…”

“Uh-huh,” Buffy nodded as she fixed her eyes on a point just to the right of Belker’s head.

“…and I’ve never seen anything like this stuff an’ neither have my demon contacts.” Belker continued.

“So, the magic user is a demon,” Buffy managed to stop herself from looking at Belker directly, “I still don’t see…”

“Look,” Belker butted in, “as the addicts get more an’ more hooked they have to take bigger and bigger doses, which costs more and more money, which they have to get from somewhere so the rob an’ steal and the crime figures go through the roof!”

“Uh-huh,” Buffy said dreamily as she found herself staring deeply into Belker’s eyes; with a start she caught herself again, blinked and snapped out of it, whatever ‘it’ was, “Stop doing that!”

“Doing what?” Belker replied innocently.

“The thing with your eyes,” Buffy explained.

“What thing with my eyes?” Belker wanted to know.

“You know…” Buffy found that she couldn’t explain, she was feeling all hot and itchy again only this time worse than she had before, “Okay, let’s try to focus…”

“I’m focusing fine,” Belker shrugged.

“No, look,” Buffy found herself getting confused; she stopped talking, tried to ignore the itchy, tingling feeling between her legs and tried again, “so you have all these addicts stealing stuff to pay for their habit, so what?”

“Where does the money go?” Belker asked simply, “It certainly doesn’t go to the dealers…in fact they’re losing money by selling this stuff. So who’s in charge and what’re they doing with the money?”

“This still could be a demon,” Buffy pointed out.

“Demons don’t have much use for money,” Belker replied.

“They obviously don’t spend it on clothes,” Buffy eyed Belker’s outfit.

“Hey!” Belker noticed the disdainful tone of Buffy’s voice, “These are my working clothes I leave the good stuff at home!”

“Yeah, okay,” Buffy conceded the point, “so, do you have any clues?”

“Nothing,” Belker admitted, “like I say this stuff just turns up by magic…” Belker looked at Buffy hopefully, “…maybe your Watcher can help.”

“Watcher?” Buffy laughed bitterly, “No way can my watcher help.”

Thinking about it, Buffy realised that at this time, Giles was probably still in England, using the dark mojo for fun a profit. From what she’d seen during the Band Candy incident, if they were to meet now he’d probably try to get her into bed…or over the hood of a police patrol car.

“No,” Buffy repeated, “my Watcher will be of no help just now.”

“Damn-it!” Belker snapped as he snatched the cigar he’d been chewing from his mouth and ground it to powder in his hand. “What about the Council?”

“To be honest,” Buffy shrugged, “the council and me don’t agree on a lot of things…like me working for them.”

“What?” Belker looked at Buffy in surprise.

“I don’t work for the council,” Buffy explained, “we had a disagreement on…well, lets just say we’re not talking right now.”

“Pity…” Belker said quietly, “…we could have done with their help.”

“W-what?” Buffy found herself floating in the warm pool of Detective-demon Belker.

“Hey!” Belker shook Buffy’s shoulder to snap her out of her daze, “You okay coz you keep drifting away there…”

“What!? Hey!” Buffy was again back in the coffee bar, only this time she had a feeling of…disappointment? “Yeah,” she agreed as she stood up unsteadily, “I must be tired,” did feeling tired explain the ‘lusty’ feelings she was having for Belker, “I better go home,” she turned towards the door, “Hey,” she turned back to look at Belker and immediately started to feel herself slip away again, “just what sort of demon are you?”

“The sort,” Belker took hold of Buffy’s arm to steady her, “that makes sure tired slayers get home safe.”

“Oh that type,” Buffy smiled dreamily as she let herself be guided towards the door.

0=0=0=0

Standing in the shadows, with his unlit pipe clasped between his teeth, Howard Hunter watched as a familiar car pulled up outside the house where Buffy Summers lived. He’d gotten the address from Hill and Renko earlier in the evening. Then, after changing into more inconspicuous clothes he’d driven over to the house and staked it out. Now he was asking himself what connection Mick Belker had with Buffy Summers. Hunter watched as the short scruffy detective helped Miss Summers out of his car and guided her up the steps to the front door. Odd, thought Howard, Summers looked ill or tired, perhaps she wasn’t the slayer after all; from what he’d heard slayers never felt tired or got ill.

Concentrating on what was going on across the road, Howard saw Belker ring the door bell. Moments later the door was opened by a middle aged woman. The woman and Belker exchanged a few words before Belker left Buffy in her care. The last Howard saw was the woman guiding Buffy Summers through the door and then closing the door behind them. Waiting until Belker had driven away, Howard sighed, admitting to himself that he wasn’t going to find out anything interesting tonight he turned to walk away down the alley behind him.

As he turned, Howard saw the figure of a man coming towards him, he saw the distorted feature’s of a vampire as light from a streetlight leaked into the alley. Drawing his .357 magnum revolver, Howard calmly shot the vampire in both kneecaps. The vampire fell groaning to the ground at Howard’s feet.

“Damn, commie deviant,” Howard muttered as he stepped over the writhing vampire and walked on down the alley.

His car was parked at the far end; he’d be long gone before anyone came to investigate the gun shots, if in fact anyone ever did.

0=0=0=0

After letting Mrs M fuse over her for a few minutes and give her a cup of tea, Buffy felt much better. Slowly climbing the stairs to her room, she found herself thinking about Mick Belker again, only this time without all the hot, tingly, itchy feelings she’d experienced previously. Just what sort of demon was a police detective, she remembered seeing him a few times in the diner with the other cops and yes, he must be a cop. Once again Buffy wished Giles was here to tell her what to do and how to deal with things; she sighed, you don’t appreciate people ‘til they’re gone she told herself. Of course Giles wasn’t ‘gone’, he was in London. He might as well be on the moon for all the good contacting him now would be.

Taking off her street clothes, Buffy found herself wishing she had something nicer to wear. These days she seemed to go from her waitress uniform straight to the clothes she patrolled in. Of course she didn’t have any close friends to go out with and the one guy, who’d shown any romantic interest in her wasn’t really her type, so what was the point of having nice clothes? Stepping into the shower, Buffy thought that maybe, when she got her next pay check she’d go out and buy something nice to wear, perhaps she’d even buy herself some hot, sexy underwear. 

After showering, Buffy climbed into bed and switched out the light. Yawning she made herself comfortable, yes she was tired which was probably why she’d felt so weird around Detective Belker, he certainly hadn’t tried to pull anything so maybe she was imagining it all. Her head touched the pillow and seconds later she was fast asleep. As Buffy slept her dreams were full of Detective-demon Mick Belker, she moaned softly as she felt his hands roam over her body. In the morning, when she awoke she found that she’d pushed up the nightdress she’d been wearing, one of her hands lay on her breast while the other was buried between her legs.

“Bastard!” Buffy cried out as she realised that the feeling she’d felt the night before were real and not a product of her being tired, “Belker you’re gonna be so sorry…”

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

7.

The morning rush was almost over when Buffy saw Mick Belker walk into the diner and go and sit at one of the tables over by the windows. Checking that she had her order pad in her apron pocket, Buffy picked up a coffee mug and jug.

“I’ll take this one,” Buffy told one of her sister waitress’ who had also seen Belker sit down and was about to go and see what he wanted.

“Be my guest, honey,” the older waitress replied with a certain amount of relief.

Walking over to Belker’s table, Buffy put the mug in front of him and started to fill it with coffee.

“What the hell are you?” Buffy demanded quietly.

“What’d mean,” Belker replied, a worried expression on his face, “look I thought you realised, I’m a demon.”

“Yeah, but what sort?” Buffy put down the coffee pot and got out her order pad, “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Belker frowned up at Buffy.

“Yeah, what do you want?” Buffy’s pencil was poised over her note pad, or, alternately it was poised to be rammed into Belker’s eye socket and on into his brain.

“What do you mean, what do I want?” Belker’s voice now had an edge to it, “What do I want for breakfast? What do I want for dinner…?”

“We’ll start with what you want for breakfast…” Buffy snapped back quietly enough so as not to cause a scene, “…then we’ll talk about what evil, demonic plan you’re trying to pull”

“Look,” Belker interrupted her, “I haven’t got any evil plans and I’ll have ham, eggs, union rings, pickles and hash browns.”

“Okay,” Buffy scribbled down the order on her pad, “I’ll be back,” she added ominously before turning and walking away.”

0=0=0=0

“Oh my lord, Bobby,” Renko moaned piteously to his partner, “will you just look at that?”

“What?” Bobby looked over in the direction Renko indicated to see Buffy and Belker apparently in deep conversation, Bobby shrugged, “Doesn’t mean anything Cowboy, she’s probably just taking his order, she is a waitress after all.”

“I know what this means,” Renko got down off his stool and started to collect the nightstick, notebook and uniform cap he’d placed on the counter next to him. “This means that she’s deserted me for a detective, I always new that detectives got all the action…and girls.”

“Yeah right,” Bobby started to steer his partner towards the door, “but Belker? Come on man think about it.”

“That’s the trouble, Bobby,” cried Renko, “I am…”

0=0=0=0

Placing a knife and fork wrapped in a serviette in front of Belker before placing his breakfast on the table; Buffy sat down across the table from him, she’d actually wanted to throw it in his face but that would probably have got her fired. Having told Debbie, her boss, that the police wanted to talk to her again about the attempted robbery from the day before, Buffy would be able to talk to Belker without her boss giving her any pointed looks.

“Alright,” Buffy began in a low voice, “exactly what sort of demon are you?” she watched in disgust as Belker covered his breakfast with ketchup and mustard.

“Why’d do you want to know?” Belker asked defensively.

“Because all last night I was dreaming of you and…” Buffy paused; she didn’t really want to tell Belker everything she’d done in her sleep, “…and other stuff.”

“Oh hell,” Belker seemed to sag a little, “I'd hoped that you’d be at least a little resistant being the slayer.”

“Resistant?” Buffy asked with rising panic, “Resistant to what? You’re not one of those icky plague demons are you?”

“Plague demons?” Belker thought about this for a moment before smiling reassuringly, “Nah I’m not one of those I’m an Incubus.”

“An In-what-you-bus?” as usual Buffy managed to mangle a word she was unfamiliar with, “You don’t look anything like a bus to me.”

For a moment Belker wondered if Buffy was stupid or just messing with him, deciding she was messing with him (which was infinitely preferable to her killing him) he tried to explain.

“It’s a curse…” Belker began only to have Buffy butt in.

“A curse,” Buffy frowned, “you’re under a curse?”

“No!” Belker looked at Buffy, his breakfast forgotten, he saw her eyes start to mist over and the tell-tail silly grin spread across her face; damn-it he thought, wouldn’t he ever be able to have a normal relationship with a woman without his powers getting in the way?

Finding herself staring into Belker’s eyes, Buffy felt the warm, itchy, tingly feeling spread across her body from between her legs. Finding herself squeezing her thighs together as her skin flushed, her eyes dilated and her breath started to come in short pants she wondered if she could get Belker into the store room without anyone noticing.

“There!” Belker spoke breaking into Buffy’s daydream about having carnal knowledge of the short, scruffy detective.

“W-what!?” Buffy blinked her eyes and suddenly found herself sitting at the table with Belker.

“Like I say,” Belker started to eat his breakfast again, “I told you its like a curse,” he told her between mouthfuls of breakfast, “how am I supposed to have a normal relationship with a woman when all she wants to do is get in the sack with me?”

“Oh my god!” Buffy gasped.

What she’d felt was very much like the way she felt when Xander had Amy cast that love spell, but without the being turned into a rat.

“Oh god you’re a…” memories of long afternoons looking through boring old books in Giles’ library came flooding back into Buffy’s mind.

How Willow and herself hadn’t spent _all_ their time researching, she remembered how they’d giggled and pointed at the ‘naughty’ wood cuts of demons and human women in Giles’ musty old books.

“Oh my god!” Buffy repeated, “You’re-you’re one of those sex demon things!”

“Yeah,” Belker sadly shrugged his shoulders again, “we all have our crosses to bear.”

“But that’s disgusting…” Buffy said not one-hundred percent agreeing with what she’d just said, “…a-and soooo disturbing and…” Buffy’s mind drifted back to her overheated dreams from last night, “…and is you’re…you know… _thing_ really ribbed for added pleasure?”

“Oh good grief…” Belker sighed heavily.

0=0=0=0

On the other side of the diner Howard Hunter sat at the counter and finished his coffee. He’d been sitting there for sometime watching Buffy as she went about her daily work. He’d also been wondering why she seemed to be spending so much time with Detective Belker. His information was that Buffy was ‘sweet’ on Officer Renko, but she’d hardly spent two minutes talking to him. Perhaps she wasn’t sweet on Renko at all perhaps she was sweet on…no, that couldn’t be right, not with Belker. He might be a good cop with an impressive arrest record but…a nice looking young woman like Buffy Summers interested in Belker? No, Howard shook his head, there had to be something else going on there.

Scowling, Howard watched as Buffy got up unsteadily from the table where she’d been sitting with Belker. Last night after he’d watched Belker drop Buffy at her front door, Howard had gone home and phoned the Watcher’s Council in London. He’d explained his suspicions to them concerning Buffy and had been reassured that the Slayer was alive and active in Tokyo; so the girl he’d seen couldn’t possibly be a slayer. However, they were interested in what he’d observed and they’d wanted him to watch her and report back.

Draining the last dregs of his coffee, Howard stood up; he couldn’t spend all day watching pretty, blonde, waitress’ who may, or may not be a slayer. He had work to do; today he and his team would be clearing out a pack of feral dogs from an old tenement building. There’d been reports that the dogs had attacked and perhaps killed some local children. It wasn’t what he and his men were trained for but they were the best equipped for the job so he’d volunteered for the duty. Buffy Summers and whether she was a slayer or not could wait until tomorrow.

0=0=0=0

At the end of her shift Buffy didn’t go straight home, instead she found herself in a clothes store at the opposite end of Dekker Avenue from the diner. As she walked through the store she found herself inexorably drawn towards the underwear section and into that particular little section that held the more ‘impractical’ items. The sort of items that were worn not for comfort but for show.

Ever since her conversation with Belker, Buffy had been distracted and preoccupied, she just couldn’t get the unkempt detective out of her mind. Desperately she thought back to all those hours spent researching in the library. Wishing she’d spent more time actually _researching_ and less time sniggering at naughty pictures with Willow, Buffy tried to remember anything she’d read about Incubus’ or was it Incubi?

Incubus was Latin (she thought) so it was probably Incubi. Having sorted out what the plural of incubus was, Buffy tried to remember what else she might have read. As it was to do with sex, now she hadn’t got an actual Incubus sitting within a few feet of her, she could concentrate.

An incubus was, she’d discovered, a demon in male form who gets into bed with people, especially women, in order to have sex with them. There was also a female counterpart called a Succubus. An incubus may have sex with a woman in order to father a child, which Buffy found very disturbing. What if Belker wanted her to have his child? But, Buffy frowned at this thought, Belker didn’t seem very happy about this power that enabled him to get any woman he wanted to go to bed with him. In fact she would have had sex with him right there in the diner right in front of everybody.

Shivering half in disgust and half in desire, Buffy continued examining the selection of impractical underwear. Her nipples started to go hard as her fingers touched the soft, silk-like material and she found herself imagining Mick undoing the fasteners and taking her in his arms and…

A disturbance from near the tills by the doorway distracted Buffy from her sexually explicit daydream. Putting down the red bra and panty set she’d been looking at, she moved to where she could see what was happening. Coming around a rack of cheap raincoats Buffy saw one of the store clerks struggling with a woman who was trying to get her hands into the open cash register.

“GIVE ME THE MONEY!” Screamed the woman in desperation.

“Oh no,” Buffy shook her head as she moved towards where the clerk (a girl of about sixteen) struggled with the heavily built woman who was trying to rob the store.

Why did these people try to rob places where she was? There had to be hundreds of other places they could hold up that she wasn’t in and why were they all so incompetent? Well the second part of her question was easy to answer. They were all so incompetent because they were under the influence of this Devil Dust. As Buffy closed with the struggling couple she recognised all the little signs. The increased rate of breathing, the sweating, the look of panicked desperation and the rapidly increasing level of violence. Knowing that if she didn’t intervene soon the woman would ‘flip-out’ and maybe kill the shop girl in her desperation to get at the money.

Coming up behind the drug crazed woman, Buffy stamped down hard behind the woman’s knees making her legs give way. The woman crashed to the floor but nearly having her kneecaps broken didn’t seem to slow her down. No sooner had she gone down than she was trying to get up again. Grabbing her by the hair at the back of her head, Buffy smashed the woman's face into the counter. Blood flew everywhere as the woman’s nose exploded in a spray of blood. Groaning the woman went limp allowing Buffy to grab her again and put her in a neck lock.

“Call the cops!” Buffy told the girl who was rubbing at the red marks on her arms where the woman had grabbed her; seeing the girl head for the phone Buffy turned her attention back to the would-be robber, she knew she’d only have a few minutes to get the information she wanted before the first police units arrived.

“Tell me who sold you this stuff,” Buffy demanded, “its this Devil Dust stuff isn’t it?”

The woman groaned in what Buffy took to be the affirmative.

“So, who sold it to you?” Buffy took one of the woman’s arms and twisted it painfully behind her back, “Tell me or you’ll never get another hit of this stuff again.”

“Baby-cakes,” the woman gave up her supplier without too much effort on Buffy’s part.

“Baby-cakes?” Buffy sighed, why couldn’t these people have sensible names (thought the woman whose first name was ‘Buffy’)?

Letting go of the woman, Buffy smashed the robber’s face into the counter again, only this time hard enough to knock her out.

“I was never here,” Buffy told the shop girl before turning to leave, she could hear sirens in the distance, “tell the cops she slipped and hit her head, right?”

Dumbly the girl nodded and Buffy went out into the street, hunching her shoulders and keeping her head down, she walked at a normal pace down the street as a patrol car flashed by only to stop outside the clothing store. Now she had a name it was time to find Belker…at the mere mention of his name Buffy felt herself drift off to a land of big soft beds and big hard…

“Stop that!” she told herself as she drew a few worried looks from the people who passed her on the street, now where was she…?

Yes, now she had a name of a dealer, Belker (this time she pinched herself to stop her mind from wandering) had told her that the dealers claimed that the drugs just turned up. Okay someone was maybe using magic to deliver the drugs. If they were simply teleporting the stuff to the dealers there’d be no way (short of finding a helpful witch) of tracking the drugs to the makers. If, however, whoever was using magic to hide themselves there was a chance she could follow them back to whoever was making the drugs. Perhaps, Buffy thought with a smile, Mick would like to help her.

0=0=0=0


	8. Chapter 8

8.

Screaming, Buffy clawed at Mick’s back as she reached yet another orgasm. Gasping for breath she lay exhausted on the rumpled sheets of the bed in the small shabby hotel room. This was not how she’d planned to spend the evening, no sir! After the run-in with the Devil Dust addict in the clothes store, Buffy had sort out Belker in the hopes that he could help her track down the dealer ‘Baby-Cakes’.

Finding Belker hadn’t been a problem, Buffy’s slayer senses (greatly enhanced now she was free of the Hellmouth’s malignant influence) led her to him in about fifteen minutes. But then her plan of action seemed to fall apart once she laid eyes on the short, scruffy, unshaven detective. Throwing herself at the sex demon, Buffy had more or less dragged him to the run down hotel (usually only used by hookers and their Johns), hired a room and pulled him upstairs behind her.

“That was freaking fantastic,” Buffy stretched once she’d caught her breath.

“Whatever,” Mick shrugged as he lay beside Buffy and stared at the ceiling; his reaction made Buffy grimace.

“For a sex demon who’s…” Buffy picked up Belker’s wrist and looked at his watch, “…spent nearly two hours having sex with a slayer, you don’t sound so happy.”

“Look at it from by point of view,” Belker said; Buffy did but still couldn’t see why the demon was feeling so ‘down’. “How would you like to be treated as something little better than a penis on legs?”

“Hey!” Buffy rolled onto her side so she could look at Belker, “Women have been used as ‘mere’ sex objects for centuries, so don’t come the down trodden sex-demon with me.”

“That’s my point,” Belker picked up a half chewed cigar and clamped it between his teeth, “What about love? What about tenderness? What about…?” Belker sighed and stopped trying to explain.

“We can cuddle if you like,” Buffy suggested; she could already feel the desire starting to rise in her as she watched Belker chew on the end of a soggy cigar.

“When I came into the this world,” Belker explained, “I thought, ‘hey this is great’ a chance to get to know women as more than just bodies that needed me for their sexual gratification, but no it was just like when I used to come to them in their sleep…wham-bam-thank-you-Mick!”

“Yeah okay,” Buffy rested her head on her hand as she lay there watching her demon lover, “I get the entire ‘used’ thing and how let down you must feel…but I really came to see you about this Baby-Cakes guy, not to have sex…” Buffy looked down at her own naked body and then at Belker’s, “…not that the sex wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t why I came to see you.”

“It wasn’t?” taking the cigar from his mouth Belker turned to look at Buffy, “Really?” Buffy shook her head, “You don’t know how much that means to me,” Belker almost sobbed.

“Weird,” Buffy muttered under her breath, “Now what about this Baby-Cakes guy?”

“Yeah I know him,” Belker turned from an insecure sex-demon into a tough Chicago detective in a couple of seconds. “Two-bit dealer usually works Jefferson Heights; you think this lead is good?”

“Like,” Buffy shrugged and noticed her breasts jiggling as she moved, the sight was starting to turn her on again, she imagined Belker’s hands on them and… “Yeah!” Buffy came back from Buffy-the-sex-slut-land with a bump, “Erm, it’s the only one we’ve got so it better be good…oh…good,” she sighed as Belker ran his hand along her thigh to her hip then up her body to rest on her breast.

“So what do we do about it?” Belker discarded his cigar and started to plant gentle kisses up and down Buffy’s neck.

“I-I’ve g-got…” Buffy stopped speaking as she shivered with pleasure, “…got a couple…oh!”

Belker ran his hand down Buffy’s back until it lay on her butt, putting her arms around Belker’s neck she pulled him down on top of her again…

0=0=0=0

Thirty minutes later Buffy and Belker’s sweat slick bodies lay next to one another as they both lay gasping for breath.

“God Mick,” Buffy panted, “how are we going to work together if we can’t keep our hands off each other?”

“I can turn my natural sex appear down some,” Mick observed, “and it helps if we’re not lying naked in bed together.”

“Okay…” Buffy took a deep breath and then she was breathing normally again, “…okay let’s try that shall we?”

“Okay,” Belker agreed as he replaced his cigar in his mouth and lay back on his pillow, “lets.”

“So, you totally know this Baby-Cakes character?” Buffy shifted herself away from Belker so she wasn’t touching him and if she didn’t look at his body they might get some work done. “Like you know where he hangs out.”

“Yeah, sure,” Belker nodded, “what are you thinking, staking out his apartment?”

“No,” Buffy thought for a moment, “I’m thinking about breaking in, waiting for him then beating a confession out of him.”

“Hey!” Belker let out a snort of laughter, “Buffy Summers you’re my kind of girl!”

“Hoped you’d say that,” with a predatory grin on her face, Buffy rolled over and pushed Mick down onto the mattress. Throwing her leg over his body like she was mounting a horse, she reached down and felt Mick’s penis go rock hard at the merest touch of her fingers, “One more time,” Buffy sighed as she guided Mick into her.

0=0=0=0

It was well after midnight and Howard Hunter couldn’t help but feel that he had better things to do than wait for short, blonde waitress to get home. He’d had a hard day today. The mission to clear the dog packs from the derelict tenements had taken an unexpected twist. It seemed the main pack was led by some sort of demon-dog. It'd cornered him in one of the upstairs rooms but he’d managed to shoot it before it could get close enough to attack him and then he’d fallen through the floor and had to wait for hours for someone to find him.

Just as Howard was about to give up and go home he heard the sound of a car coming down the quiet residential street. Watching he saw Buffy Summers climb out of Detective Belker’s car and then lean back into the interior. Screwing up his eyes Howard was just able to make out what Belker and Summers were doing; they were kissing!

“Judas Priest!” Howard exclaimed as the couple continued kissing.

Watching, Howard saw them break reluctantly apart, Buffy stepped away from the car and shut the door. Standing there she watched the car disappear down the street before turning and heading up the steps to her front door. Thinking he wouldn’t see anything else tonight, Howard was about to walk away back to his car and then drive himself home. Just as he was about to turn away, instincts honed in the jungles of Vietnam drew his attention to movement on the other side of the road.

Reaching for his gun, Howard watched in helpless fascination as a human shaped shadow detached itself from a deeper, darker shadow and made its way towards Buffy. Just when Howard thought the creature of the night was going to pounce on the defenceless young woman, she turned and kicked the monster between the legs. Stopped dead in its tracks the human-like creature doubled over in pain. However it soon started to straighten up, but Buffy was too fast for it. Kicking out she sent the creature flying to land heavily in the street. Jumping from the top of the steps in one bound Buffy was on the night-walker. Picking him up one handed she hit him several times sending him staggering across the road. Just as Howard was wondering what Buffy’d do next she produced a stake and rammed it into the vampire’s heart.

“Oh! Good work there Miss Summers,” Howard cheered quietly.

Well, he thought, that proved that Miss Summers was a slayer. He’d need to inform the council as soon as possible. The thought that there would appear to be two slayers in the world was troubling, but Howard felt sure that the Council would be able to work it out. Smiling to himself, he turned and headed for his car; tomorrow he must find an excuse so he could tail Buffy Summers during the day. Waiting outside her home every night was all well and good, but the only really useful thing it told him was; what time she got home at night and who took her home.

0=0=0=0

Slipping her door key into the lock, Buffy pushed open the door and went inside what she was rapidly coming to think of as her ‘home’. Today had been a good day; she’d got a lead on where this Devil Dust stuff was coming from, she’d had lots of _really_ high-quality sex and she’d rounded out the evening with a good slay, she’d sleep like a log tonight.

“Is that you, Buffy?” Mrs McLoughlin called from upstairs.

“Hi Mrs M,” Buffy called back happily, “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“I was already awake dear,” Buffy’s landlady replied, “Sounded like there was some ruckus on the street…”

“Yeah,” Buffy called back as she mounted the stairs to head for her room, “raccoons fighting or something.”

“Oh there you are,” Mrs McLoughlin smiled at Buffy, “you do look happy with yourself,” she smiled, “been having lots of sex with your boyfriend have you?”

“I…!?” Buffy didn’t know what to say, how had Mrs M guessed?

“Well you can tell me all about it tomorrow over breakfast,” Mrs McLoughlin patted Buffy on the arm, “I’m away to me bed now…”

Turning, Mrs McLoughlin shuffled off back to her bedroom.

0=0=0=0

While Buffy slept the sleep of the sexually satisfied and Detective Belker wondered if he could ever find true love in the arms of a slayer. Deep under a derelict apartment building, in a room that had once been used as a bomb shelter and now only a very few people knew existed, two men were hard at work. While one attended to a large, complex arrangement of glass pipes, beakers, and gas burners. Another man sat at a table counting dollar bills and placing them into neat piles.

“I’ll have another batch ready in about an hour,” Harry Johnson called to his partner as he checked on a large flat metal tray where the liquid from the insane science experiment evaporated leaving a fine yellow powder behind.

“Good,” called the other man who happened to be Harry’s brother Nathan, he gestured at the neatly stacked dollar bills, “with what we’ve got here we’ve got nearly $50,000!”

“Yeah,” Harry didn’t sound as happy as his brother, “look, what-do-y’say we make this the last batch and move on?”

“Why?” Nathan looked up from the money in surprise, “We’re doing good here and the cops haven’t got clue one as to where the stuff is coming from.”

“Look,” Harry adjusted the flow of liquid from one beaker to another, “I think we’ve drained this area of all the cash we’re likely to get, hey,” Harry smiled at his brother, “this ain’t the richest place in the world or even in Chicago…I’m just saying we should move on to where there’s richer pickings that’s all.”

Harry might be the younger of the two brothers (by about five minutes) but he was definitely the brains of the outfit.

“Oh yeah,” Nathan laughed as he thought of something, “maybe we could go somewhere warmer too…y’know LA or some place like that?”

“Y’know something,” Harry smiled broadly, “sometimes you come up with the best ideas, big brother.”

“I do?” Nathan wondered what he’d said to make his brother smile so broadly.

“Yeah, LA, Hollywood all those rich assholes in their big houses,” Harry smiled at the idea; very soon $50,000 would be pocket change compared to what they’d be making. “I bet we could charge double…no! Four times what we charge these poor saps here.”

“Yeah,” Nathan nodded his head happy that he’d thought of something his brother hadn’t.

“So you agree, we make this batch the last then we move on?” Harry asked.

“Yeah sure, why not?” Nathan always agreed with what his little brother said.

0=0=0=0

After the world’s most embarrassing breakfast; Buffy had had to sit there while Mrs McLoughlin quizzed her about every detail of her ‘boyfriend’ and their sex life, she’d finally got away in time only to be five minutes late for the start of her early shift. The plan was to meet up with Mick after she’d finished work; try not to have sex and then track down this Baby-Cakes guy. Mick would tell his Captain that he’d got a lead on a dealer that might lead him to a supplier. Hopefully this would allow Mick to work alone without too much interference from the rest of the cops at Hill Street Precinct.

0=0=0=0

Driving their unit down yet another run down street, Andy Renko looked out at all the closed shops and run-down apartment buildings that bordered the road.

“Y’know Bobby,” Renko sighed, “I don’t know how people can live like this…”

Smiling to himself, Bobby drove the unit at a steady twenty-five miles an hour down the street. The ‘I don’t know how people can live like this’ phrase was the introduction to one of Renko’s three favourite rants. The other two were, ‘Why can’t I be a Detective’ and most recently, “Why won’t Buffy Summers come on a date with me’? Bobby had heard it all before and knew all the places where he should say ‘Uh-huh’ and nod his head in agreement with his partner. Just as Renko was getting into how he remembered how the ‘Hill’ had been a nice neighbourhood once, Bobby noticed a disturbance in front of a liquor store.

“Hey, Cowboy,” Bobby pointed over to the crowd of people outside the store, “what’s goin’ on?”

“I suppose we better go see,” Renko replied tiredly, “try and make sure these no-good-sons-of-bitches don’t kill each other.”

Driving over to the store, Bobby hit the siren for a few seconds just to give the people causing the disturbance a chance to stop what they where doing and act like civilised human beings again. This time, however the siren didn’t seem to have much effect.

Climbing out of the unit, Renko drew his night stick and started to move towards the crowd, he was aware of Bobby calling in the disturbance to dispatch. Moving towards the crowd Renko started to feel a little uncomfortable. The scene in front of him was strangely like a scene from a Zombie movie. There were a crowd of men and women, all ages and all races trying to get into the liquor store, it appeared that the store owner had locked his door for some reason. What put him on edge the most, however was the silence.

Normally a crowd like this would be shouting and yelling fit to raise the dead, but this mob was as silent as the grave. Moving towards the edge of the crowd all Renko could hear was the shuffling of feet on the sidewalk and the strange heavy breathing of the mob. Pushing a couple of the crowd out of the way Renko squeezed himself through the mob until he was standing between the crowd and the door. Still the zombie-like members of the crowd paid him little heed.

“OKAY!” Renko shouted in an attempt to get everyone’s attention, “What the hell’s goin’ on here?”

Suddenly, Renko found he was very much the centre of attention as twenty pairs of red eyes turned towards him and ‘locked-on’. First one then another and finally all of the crowd let out a feral snarl that almost froze Renko’s blood in his veins.

“BOBBY!” Renko yelled for his partner’s help as his hand reached for his service revolver.

0=0=0=0


	9. Chapter 9

9.

“…Yes Chief, I see that, but…” Captain Furillo replied calmly, but with mounting irritation, Furillo waited for Chief Daniels to finish speaking. “Of course it isn’t Precinct policy to shoot citizens for no good reason, but…” once again Chief Daniels broke into what Furillo was about to say, however this time Frank had lost his patience. “Well, Chief what were they supposed to do? Let themselves be torn apart by the mob? You weren’t there, you didn’t see what happened so don’t try and second guess officers on the street…” the Chief tried to interrupt Furillo, but by now Frank had a good head of steam and righteous indignation built up so the Chief didn’t stand a chance.

“And another thing,” Furillo snapped, “what’s happening about my request for more manpower?” Frank took a breath allowing Chief Daniels to speak but when he didn’t say what Frank wanted to hear he interrupted the Chief again. “Yes I know about the manpower shortage, I know about restricted budgets; but did you know our holding cells are almost full of violent addicts who are in all probability going to die? How’s that going to look in the papers Chief when the pictures of dozens of dead bodies gets splashed across the page and people find out you did nothing to help!”

Frank slammed down the phone; he’d had enough of ‘political’ cops like Daniels. It was times like this he felt like resigning and going out west, maybe find himself a job as Sheriff of a small town. For a moment Frank wondered if Joyce would be willing to give up her public defenders job and be a small town lawyer. Massaging his temples, Frank sat down behind his desk and gave a bitter laugh; chances were he wouldn’t need to resign, Daniels would fire him. There was a knock on his door.

“Frank?” Looking up Frank saw Phil Esterhaus standing in the door way.

“Phil,” Frank sighed, “what can I do to help you?”

“Its Bobby Hill and Andy Renko, Francis,” Phil always called Frank, Francis.

“Oh god, yes,” Frank looked up at his old friend hopefully, “how are they?”

“A little shook up but apart from a few cuts and bruises they’ll be okay,” Phil explained, “They’ve both volunteered to come back on duty tomorrow, if you want them to.”

For a moment Frank couldn’t help comparing Hill and Renko with Chief Daniels, Frank knew who he’d prefer to have watching his back.

“Tell them ‘thanks’ and yes,” Frank sounded relieved, “but ask them to come and see me after roll call and before they go out on patrol.”

“Will do,” Phil nodded, he hesitated before speaking again, “Have you talked to the Chief about more manpower, things are getting hairy out there,” Phil gestured towards ‘out there’, “and holding’s almost full. We’ve had to keep the addicts cuffed and separate from the other prisoners they’re so violent…”

“Phil,” Frank had come to a decision, Daniels would probably haul him over the coals for it but at this point he didn’t care, “Cut loose all the ‘normal’ non-violent prisoners, we can always find them again later.”

“If you think…” Phil started to prevaricate but Furillo was having none of it.

“What else can we do Phil?” Frank said earnestly, “We’ve no help, Daniels is either unwilling or unable to help and do you think it’s better to have hordes of drug crazed zombie killers on the street?”

“Not if you put it like that,” Phil agreed, “I’ll get on with the paper work…”

“To hell with the paper work,” Furillo replied, “just get them outta here and if you can some how ‘lose’ the arrest reports it’ll probably look better at the court of enquiry.”

“Understood Francis,” Esterhaus nodded before turning and going to ‘lose’ a whole stack of arrest reports.

For a wonder no one else came in with another problem that only he could solve. The Hill had some good men but no one wanted to make a decision without running it by him first, it was a sign of the times; initiative was frowned on in case it made the people upstairs look bad. Of course if it made them look good on the six o’clock news they had no problem with claiming the credit.

The near riot and shooting outside the liquor store on One-Seventeenth Street had seemed to be some kind of signal for all hell to break out all over the Hill. His officers, Hill and Renko, had stopped to investigate a disturbance outside a liquor store. When Renko had tried to disperse the crowd he’d been attacked and both he and his partner had been forced to open fire. Even this hadn’t made the crowd back off, they’d continued to attack the two officers and it was only when Hill opened fire with a riot gun that the crowd dispersed.

Of course the media, who never went anywhere near the Hill unless it suited them, was calling it a massacre. They were spinning it as two blood thirsty cops gunning down ‘innocent’ civilians. Or at least they had until the Channel Seven news team was attacked by a mob and beaten near half to death.

So far no one had come up with why the rioters had acted like they had, but one thing was for sure. All the rioters that had been killed or had been put into holding were in the last stages of Devil Dust addiction. Devil Dust addicts usually became desperate and violent as they tried to get more money to buy the drug to feed their addiction. Things normally only got serious when someone tried to stop them. After they passed though this stage the addicts usually died. He’d read some of the hospital reports, the cause of death was always the same; total failure of all vital organs.

But the attack on Hill and Renko had been the first time that an entire crowd of addicts had acted in consort. If what had happened in the past was anything to go on, it looked like the addicts were trying to break into the store to rob it. What would have happened once they’d got in was anyone’s guess. But what was happening now was pretty obvious, the Devil Dust addicts either couldn’t get any more of the drug or their addiction had run its course.

A moment hardly seemed to pass without bloodied cops bringing in another struggling, homicidal victim; to be honest Frank didn’t know what to do for the best. It was as he was trying to make up his mind what to do that there was another knock on his door. Looking up he saw the commander of his Swat Team, Lieutenant Hunter, standing in the door way.

“Judas Priest, Frank!” Howard Hunter stepped into Furillo’s office, “When are you going to let me and my men clean house,” Howard pointed to ‘outside’, “It’s like the Tet Offensive out there.”

“Howard…” 

Frank was just about to tell Howard to calm down and that things weren’t as bad as they looked, but this time Frank stopped himself; this time things were probably worse than they looked. Standing up Frank went to the door of his office, searching out Ray Calletano, his second in command, he called the man over.

“Ray,” Frank called as the man in question looked up, “Command meeting, my office in five minutes.”

“That’s more like it Frank,” Howard beamed guessing at what Furillo would say at the meeting.

0=0=0=0

“Oh god, Mick! No!” Buffy moaned, “No, don’t stop!” she squirmed under Mick Belker in her excitement as they made love in the back seat of his car. “Harder! Faster!” Buffy gasped, “Give me all you’ve got!”

Even at these new heights of passion that she’d discovered with Mick, a part of Buffy’s mind couldn’t help thinking that she was reading from the script of a particularly bad porn movie…not that she’d watched that many porn movies…in fact she’d _never_ watched _any_ porn movies…well maybe a couple of times...Willow had been such a bad influence on her.

Pushing up with her hips to meet Mick’s thrusts, Buffy neared her climax as she panted out her desire. Finally with a great scream her orgasm arrived like one, big, mind blowing tsunami after another. The couple collapsed exhausted in the back seat, even Buffy was out of breath and had to wait a moment for her heart to stop racing and her breathing to steady. Eventually, when she thought she could speak without panting, she tapped Mick on his shoulder.

“You okay?” she asked, looking around a thought came to her mind, “Lucky we’re both short…”

“What d’ya mean?” Mick pushed himself off Buffy and from between her legs.

“…I mean the back of this car isn’t exactly spacious, is it?” Buffy asked; Mick laughed as he started to pull up his jeans.

After finishing her shift at the diner, Buffy had hurried home, changed into her patrolling clothes and then gone in search of Mick Belker. It hadn’t taken her long to find him and it was then that her plan had started to go wrong. The plan Buffy had in her head was ‘try not to have sex with Demon Detective Mick Belker’. But as a famous German General had once said; no plan survives contact with the enemy…or in this case incubus Detectives. Buffy had found herself pulling Mick into the back of his car as she pulled off her own jeans and panties.

“Okay,” Buffy was a little distracted as she couldn’t find her panties, “what about this Baby-Cakes guy?” She sighed a sigh of relief as she found her underwear on the shelf under the rear window, “And how did he get such a stupid name, I mean ‘Baby-Cakes’?”

“Don’t worry about it,” by this time Mick had climbed back into the front seat and was checking that he still had his badge and his gun, “I know where he lives.”

“Cool,” Buffy replied as she wriggled back into her jeans; at this point she was seriously considering wearing a skirt in future, it would certainly be less trouble getting dressed again. “So where do we go and what do we do when we get there?”

“Hey you musta done stuff like this before,” Mick, now fully dressed and turned to look over the back of the driver’s seat at Buffy, “What would you do?”

“Well,” Buffy made some final adjustments to her clothing, good to go she told herself, “I’d wait for him to come home, then break down his door and beat the information I want out of him, sometimes I’d slay him, or it, afterwards.”

“Like I said before,” Mick’s grin got wider as he looked at Buffy admiringly, “you’re my kinda girl, but maybe we won’t slay him, okay?”

“Totally,” Buffy agreed as she climbed into the front of the car next to Mick, “the slaying part is optional, now…”

“Hold on,” Mick raised his hand for quiet before pointing out the windshield at a white dude who was crossing the street in front of them, “that’s him, you ready?”

“Erm, yeah,” Buffy looked around in confusion, it was just dawning on her that they were parked on a fairly busy street so they’d been making out in the back of the car where any passer-by could have seen them, Buffy whimpered quietly, “Oooooh.”

“Come on before he goes too far,” Mick opened the door and got out; he waited for Buffy to wriggle across the seat and climb out onto the sidewalk next to him. “Here hold my hand,” Mick held out his hand to Buffy.

“Why?” Buffy looked at the hand suspiciously, “I’m a big girl I don’t need to hold hands while I walk down the street.”

“No!” Mick started to explain, “It’s so you look like my girlfriend.”

“Oh! Yeah,” Buffy grinned apologetically, “Sorry wasn’t thinking,” she took hold of Mick’s hand. “Let’s get after him.”

0=0=0=0

Looking at all the faces of the men standing around his office, Furillo couldn’t help thinking that if this went wrong his and a lot of these men’s careers would be over.

“Alright, listen up,” Furillo began, “because Chief Daniels won’t send us any support I’ve decided to act on my own initiative.” Frank took a deep breath, “From now on and ‘til I say differently, we only arrest people for the most serious of crimes. We will not be arresting anyone in the last stages of Devil Dust addiction…”

“What do we do with them, Frank?” Howard asked quietly as the full seriousness of the situation hit home.

“Whatever you think’s best, Howard, but don’t bring them back here we’ve got nowhere to put them,” Frank turned to Phil Esterhaus, “Phil I want you to double up on all patrols…”

“That’ll mean we won’t be able…” Phil began but Frank cut him off.

“I know what it means, Phil,” Frank acknowledged, “but it also means there’s less likelihood of an officer being without back up. Howard,” Frank turned to the Swat Officer, “you are my mobile reserve, I want you and your men to move in and deal with any hot spots in the best way you can.” Frank took a deep breath, “Gentlemen, we have a situation the likes of which I don’t think any police department in this country has faced before, we’re all going to have to make some hard decisions and anyone who isn’t comfortable with that can go home and…”

Frank stopped talking; he was distracted by the sight of Joyce Davenport being helped into the squad room by two officers as blood ran down her face from a head room.

“Dismissed!” Frank snapped before rushing out into the squad room and over to Joyce.

0=0=0=0

Harry Johnson was a worried drugs supplier; there’d been something wrong with the last batch of Devil Dust he’d made. Perhaps he’d said the spell wrong; he remembered stumbling over a couple of the more difficult words. It didn’t seem to matter how often he said the spell it never got any easier, but this was the first time he’d made a bad mistake. Greedy for money and wanting to leave Chicago for the warmth and richer picking of the West Coast, Harry hadn’t been too concerned that he might have screwed up the magic.

At least not until he noticed the first few addicts flipping-out. It happened to all the addicts after five maybe six weeks. Eventually the Dust would turn the poor suckers into raging monsters for a while and then they’d die. He didn’t care about that, there were always more losers looking for the incredible high that Devil Dust gave them, each of them not caring about the consequences. Or believing they could kick the habit before it took them down. But that was the beauty of Devil Dust, one sniff and you were hooked, the only escape was violent insanity followed by death.

But what he’d seen had worried him, this latest batch appeared to send the addicts straight over the edge the instant they used it. However, they didn’t go into a berserk rage, no, now they seemed to be working together. They came together in little groups before going on the rampage and it seemed to be getting worse, none of the addicts were dying, at least none that he’d seen.

It was time to leave, as soon as Nathan got back with the money, they’d jump into their car and drive. California here we come, was Harry’s thought.

0=0=0=0


	10. Chapter 10

10.

Lifting her leg, Buffy kicked in the flimsy door to Baby-Cakes’ one room apartment. Her and Belker’s original plan of getting to the apartment before Baby-Cakes, breaking in and waiting for the drug dealer had been put on hold. Buffy and Mick had stopped off once too often to have sex and now they were late so the plan had been rethought.

The black girl, who was sitting on the edge of Baby-Cakes’ bed dressed only in her bra and panties, screamed as Buffy crossed the room to where Baby-Cakes stood. Taking hold of the drug dealer, she threw him across the room. Hitting the opposite wall, Baby-Cakes struggled to his feet just in time for Buffy to stride over to him, grab him and hurl him at another wall, the girl screamed again but Mick grabbed her from behind and put his hand over her mouth.

Picking up Baby-Cakes once more, Buffy threw him at the ceiling before standing back to watch him crash to the floor where he lay moaning. Plaster dust settled on the floor around Baby-Cakes like fine snow. Stepping forward Buffy took hold of the dealer’s arm and pulled him roughly to his feet.

“Okay, Cakes,” Buffy shook the dealer like he was a rag doll, “talk!”

“Talk about what, man?” Baby-Cakes replied as he used his free hand to wipe blood from his lip, “What you doin’ comin’ burstin’ in like that and…Aaagh!”

Buffy squeezed Baby-Cakes’ arm drawing a long, pitiful scream from his mouth.

“The drugs,” Buffy demanded as she twisted his arm, “the Devil Dust you’ve been selling, where does it come from?”

“Damned if’n I know,” Baby-Cakes whined, “it just turns up and I sell it, man.”

Noticing the beads of sweat trickling down Baby-Cakes’ face, Buffy knew he was lying.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” Buffy sang out before throwing Baby-Cakes at the wall again; instead of the wall this time he hit a table which had a TV set sitting on it; there was a loud bang as the TV fell to the floor and the tube exploded.

Being bounced off the wall again the dealer found himself falling into Buffy’s grasp, he cried out in alarm as he found himself in close proximity to the ceiling once more. Making as if to catch Baby-Cakes on his way down, Buffy stepped back at the last second and allowed Baby-Cakes to crash to the floor once more.

“Ooops, butter fingers!” Buffy said to the drug dealer as he lay groaning on the floor, “You know I can keep this up all day...can you?”

“I think she brings it,” Baby-Cakes pointed a trembling finger at the girl, “I always find the product after she’d been here.”

Turning Buffy glared at the girl who was struggling in Mick’s arms, her muffled cries increased in volume and urgency. Walking over to where the girl squirmed in Mick’s grasp, Buffy took a moment to study her face and what little clothing she was wearing. Her make-up and underwear, plus the clothes that lay scattered on the threadbare carpet suggested a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. Her frightened eyes, however, seemed to point to a fourteen or fifteen year old teenager.

“Yeah okay I bring the drugs to Baby,” the girl blurted out as soon as Mick removed his hand from her mouth. “The guys that make the stuff tell me to hide it in his apartment where he’ll find it I don’t know why.”

“Weird,” Mick said from behind the girl, “but it would give the impression of it just turning up.”

“Yeah,” agreed Buffy, “this is all looking less magic-y by the moment.”

“What about the compulsion to sell the stuff?” Mick reminded her.

“Yeah,” Buffy rounded on Baby-Cakes again, “all the dealers selling this stuff said they felt ‘compelled’ to sell it…”

“Year sure,” Baby-Cakes had pushed himself up into a sitting position on the floor, “when it’s made perfectly clear what’ll happen if y’don’t sell it, yeah sure you’ll sell it.”

“Damn-it!” Buffy cried angrily, “Of course if you’re used to things having magical explanations all you see are magical explanations.”

“Whoever’s pushing this stuff,” Mick added, “must have a powerful hold over these hairballs to make sure they don’t talk.”

“Hold on Mick,” Buffy ran her hand through her hair as she tried to puzzle things out, “Look the pushers were telling the truth, they didn’t know where the drugs were coming from and they did feel compelled to sell it but not for the reasons we thought,” Buffy turned to the girl again. “Okay, where’d you collect the drugs from?”

“This big guy delivers it,” the girl sobbed.

“What big guy, slimball?” Mick demanded.

“This big, stupid, white guy, I don’t know his name an’ I don’t know where he comes from,” by now the girl was sobbing hard enough to make her not inconsiderable breasts heave up and down.

Buffy found all the exposed coffee coloured flesh a little distracting as she wondered what it would be like to have both Mick and the girl in bed with her. Taking a deep breath she drove these disturbing thoughts from her mind and tried to get back to the business in hand.

“Right,” once more Buffy was looking at Baby-Cakes, “the money you get when you sell the drugs, where does that go?”

“There’s a run down apartment block on 124th Street,” Baby-Cakes explained, “I have to leave it under a floor board in the lobby.”

“Oh,” Buffy said in surprise, “that was easy.”

“Maybe too easy,” Mick cautioned.

“Hey!” Buffy looked around at Mick, “124th Street that’s near where I…” 

Buffy bit off the words she was going to say, now wasn’t the time to explain to Mick that she’d just sort of appeared in this world after dying in her own.

“Okay, douche-bag,” Mick growled at Baby-Cakes, “is there any special time for money pick-ups?"

“No,” Baby-Cakes shook his head miserably as he contemplated a long term in the local prison, “I just have to put the money there when I’ve sold the last consignment of drugs…”

“Then I’m guessing another consignment turns up in a day or two, right?” Buffy asked.

“Yeah,” Baby-Cakes nodded.

“Okay,” Buffy turned to look at Mick, “I think we’ve got all we need to know, don’t you Mick?”

“This white guy who gives you the drugs,” Mick shook the girl making her breasts wobble and Buffy start to feel all hot and itchy again, “what does he look like?”

“I don’t know,” whined the girl, “Big, white, kinda stupid looking.”

“I think that’s the best we’re going to get from her, Mick, let’s go now, huh?” there was a certain tone of urgency in Buffy’s voice that had little to do with catching drug dealers.

“Yeah,” Mick let go of the girl and pushed her over to where Baby-Cakes was still sitting on the floor; he pointed his finger at the couple, “If I ever see you again, I’ll make your lives hell, understand?”

The girl and Baby-Cakes nodded their heads.

“Let’s go,” Buffy sounded like a junky who needed her fix or a small child that needed to pee.

“Yeah, okay,” Mick agreed as they left the drug dealer and his girl to clear up the mess they’d made.

0=0=0=0

Sitting in the back seat of Mick’s car, Buffy once more struggled back into her jeans after making out with Mick. This time they’d parked in a little used ally on the north side of 124th Street where no one could see them.

“You know, Mick,” Buffy said with a satisfied sign, “none of my boyfriends were anywhere near as good as you.”

“Yeah, fine,” Mick replied grumpily from the front seat, “but would you want a relationship with me that’s not based just on the sex?”

“Of…” Buffy stopped herself, she’d been about to say that of course she would, but deep down she knew that was a lie; she knew that any relationship she had with Mick Belker would be about the sex and little else. “No,” Buffy sighed, “you’re too nice a guy to lie to Mick. Any relationship we had the sex would always play a big…huge part in it, sorry… I know you wanted something more than that.”

“Okay,” Mick shrugged his shoulders, “at least ya honest about it…”

“This doesn’t mean we’re never going to have sex ever again does it?” Buffy asked with a certain amount of panic in her voice.

“No,” Mick chuckled, “we can still do the sex if you want to.”

“Thank god for that,” Buffy said with a relieved sigh.

“Okay now we’ve got that settled,” Mick looked over the back of his seat at Buffy, “lets stake this place out and catch us some douche-bags.”

0=0=0=0

Ducking down behind a car, Howard listened as bullets cracked above his head. His original plan of making an excuse to allow him to follow Buffy Summers had flown out of the window when civil war had broken out on the Hill. The zombie-like Devil Dust addicts had seemed to act as a catalyst or lighted match to the powder keg that was The Hill: and now Diablos were shooting Gipsy Boys and the Gipsy Boys were shooting the Bloods and the Jewish Defence Association were shooting at everyone, just to be sure. It was like the Battle of Hue all over again.

In lieu of any help being sent to the Hill by Chief Daniels, Frank Furillo had told his cops to keep a lid on things the best way they could, but under no circumstances were they to arrest anyone for anything less than murder. Now everyone who had a gun was out on the streets using it and as usual the police were caught in the middle trying to keep the peace. Of course keeping the peace presupposed that there was any peace to keep in the first place. It was clear to Howard that they’d lost control of the streets and if he kept his men out here any longer they were going to start taking serious casualties.

Firing off a couple of rounds from his revolver at a youth who was about to throw a petrol bomb, Howard smiled as the teenager dropped his bomb and ran off with his jeans on fire. Lifting his personal radio to his lips Howard called the precinct house.

“Frank? Frank, it’s Howard,” Howard called not bothering with proper police radio procedure.

“What is it Howard?” Frank’s voice came calmly from the radio.

“We’re losing control of the situation out here Frank,” Howard replied as a hail of bottles and stones rattled against the car he was hiding behind, “I hate to say it Frank but we need to pull back and reorganise.”

“Is it really that bad, Howard?” Frank asked.

“Judas Priest Frank!” Howard snapped back, “I’ve got at least six officers down and the numbers of rioters are increasing by the minute. If we stay out here much longer you’re going to have dead officers on your hands.”

“Okay Howard, try to keep calm,” Frank replied.

“That’s easy for you to say…” another bullet slammed into the side of the car that Howard was using for cover, “…but you’re not out here getting shot at.”

“I know, Howard,” again Frank’s calm tones came over the airwaves, “I still can’t get any action out of Daniels, I’m going to try the Mayor directly, can you hold for ten more minutes?”

“Honestly?” Howard slumped down onto the roadway a defeated man, “Honestly, Frank I don’t know.”

“Will you try?” Frank asked.

“Of course I’ll try but I’m not risking any more of my men,” Howard told Frank, “If it looks like we’re going to be over run I’m pulling back to Hill Street.”

“That’s all I’m asking of you,” Frank called back, “thank-you and good luck, Howard.”

0=0=0=0

Sitting in the corner of Frank Furillo’s office Joyce Davenport watched as Frank put down the phone. Her head throbbed from where she’d been hit by the mugger; she’d parked her car across the street from the police station intending to go in and ask Frank if he was available for an early dinner. The mugger had come out of nowhere right there in front of the Precinct House, he’d hit her with a stone and snatched her purse. Luckily some Hill Street officers had got to her almost before she’d hit the ground and taken her inside. Once there someone had put a dressing on her head and she’d been put into Frank’s office where she now watched the squad room as it slowly took on the aspect of a fort under siege.

“Any luck?” Joyce asked as Frank put down the phone, she could tell by his face that he’d not got through.

“The mayor is ‘unavailable’,” Frank replied.

“WHAT!?” Joyce shrieked, “The Hill is about to go up in flames and the mayor’s ‘unavailable’? What are they playing at Frank?"

“Damned if I know,” Frank stood behind his desk looking unseeingly at the piles of paperwork that littered its surface, “maybe they want the Hill to get burnt to the ground.”

“It would certainly solve a lot of their problems,” Joyce suddenly remembered something she’d sort of overheard while she was having a drink in a bar with some of her colleagues; at the time she’d not thought much about it but now.

“Frank,” Joyce looked up at Frank her eye’s full of fear, “maybe that’s it…”

“What?” Frank frowned at Joyce willing her to explain.

“Something I heard not so long ago,” Joyce began, “a couple of guys from city hall, they were talking about redeveloping the Hill, something to do with inner-city regeneration. But the plans were put on hold because it would cost too much to get the locals to move out…”

“Oh my god!” Frank stared at Joyce in horror, “They do want the Hill to burn down!”

“Yeah,” Joyce nodded her head, “a lot of people would make a lot of money from redeveloping the Hill…”

“PHIL!?” Frank called out as he rushed to the door of his office, “Tell everyone to pull back to the Precinct, no exceptions.”

0=0=0=0


	11. Chapter 11

11.

Sitting astride Mick, Buffy moaned with desire as she bounced happily up and down in his lap. Pushing up her t-shirt, Mick started to work on Buffy's painfully hard nipples with his lips and tongue; this drew even louder cries of pleasure from Buffy's mouth. Writhing in uncontrolled desire, Buffy moved faster as she neared her orgasm. With a loud cry she climaxed, the intensity of her orgasm almost causing her to pass out from the out-and-out pleasure overload. Gasping for air she collapsed against Mick as she came down from her sexual high.

“It just gets better every time we do it,” Buffy kissed Mick's face as she slowly got her breath back.

“Whatever,” Mick sighed, “y'know, practice makes perfect an' all that crap.”

“You really _do_ want more than just the sex don't you?” Buffy asked in a slightly less breathless voice; she climbed off Mick and started to struggle back into her clothes.

The front seat of Mick's car seemed far to small for two adults who were both trying to get dressed, but somehow they managed.

“Oww!” Buffy cried as she twisted and she tried to put on her panties, “I think the steering wheel hit me in the back.”

“Here let me see,” Mick said before examining the smooth skin of Buffy's back, “nah, nothing there, you'll be fine.”

“You sure?” Buffy tried to turn and look but could see nothing, “I'll take your word for it.”

Almost fully dressed now she sat in the passenger's seat and pulled on her jeans while watching out of the windscreen. After buttoning and zipping up her jeans, Buffy took a moment to take a long look out at the street in front of them. They'd parked Mick's car in an ally on the north side of 124th Street where they had a clear view of the front entrance of the run-down apartment block where Baby-Cakes claimed he left the money for the drugs he'd sold.

“Do you think we've missed anyone going in while we were...” Buffy gave a quiet laugh, “...y'know, doing it?”

“Nah,” Mick shook his head, “I kept watch over ya shoulder.”

“WHAT!?” Buffy looked aghast at the demon cop, “You mean you weren't...?”

“Look,” Mick sighed again, “to be honest and I really don't wanna hurt ya feelings, but...”

“But?” Buffy almost snarled, “Remember that a wrong answer could lead to death or serious maiming.”

“Look,” Mick continued, “I thought you understood, the sex is just a job to me, I get no real gratification outta it...” once more Mick sighed this time with a certain amount of wistful longing, “...of course if you really loved me it might be different.”

“I'm sorry Mick but...” Buffy began; she realised that she'd been so caught up in her own sexual gratification that she'd not spared a thought for any needs that Mick might have.

“I know,” Mick replied softly, “you could never love a demon like me, what with you being the slayer an' all.”

Reaching out she took Mick's hand in her own, for just a moment she considered telling the demon that she might be able to love him given time, but she stopped herself. Mick might be a demon but giving him false hope like that just to ensure she got more sex would be cruel. Instead she said;

“Sorry Mick.”

“Hey!” Mick turned to her and gave her a lopsided smile, “Maybe we should check it out, I mean,” Mick's smile got slightly wider and nearly got all the way to his eyes this time, “once or twice there I got lost in the moment so someone coulda sneaked in.”

“You say the nicest things, Mick,” Buffy leaned across the seat and kissed Mick on the cheek before turning and opening the door.

Just for a moment, Mick sat behind the wheel his hand on his cheek where Buffy had kissed him. He watched her butt as she climbed out of the passenger's side and felt a slight steering of desire. It was then that he realised, the slayer might not love him but he loved her; he was one seriously mixed up demon. With yet another heavy sigh, Mick opened his door and joined Buffy in the alleyway.

0=0=0=0

“Phil, has everyone checked in?” Frank Furillo asked his Station Sergeant while all around them officers got ready for a siege.

“Everyone except Mick Belker,” Sergeant Esterhaus replied levelly.

“Yeah that's right he said he had a lead on this Devil Dust,” Frank gave the door to the squad room a worried look almost willing Mick to walk in with one of his chewed cigars sticking out of his mouth.

“Frank,” Phil said quietly, “Mick's a good cop he knows enough to keep his head down 'til this is all over.”

“Yeah I know,” Frank agreed, “but...” pushing his worries aside, Frank took a deep breath and asked, “Where's Howard?”

“Him and the SWAT guys are covering everyone's tale while we get organised.,” Phil explained.

“Yeah,” Frank smiled; you could say a lot of things about Howard Hunter, most of them uncomplimentary, but you had to admit that the man was brave and knew where his duty lay, “thanks Phil, keep me posted, I'll be in my office.”

Turning away from Phil, Frank made his way across the squad room. For a moment he stood and watched as officers barricaded doors and windows. Over in the far corner of the room a patrolman was handing out spare weapons and ammunition to his buddies. Reaching under his jacket, Frank brought out his own service revolver and checked that it was loaded. It had been so long that he'd actually used the weapon in 'anger' that he often didn't even load it. Today, however it was loaded. Snapping the cylinder of his revolver closed, Frank walked over to the arms locker and got himself a box of spare rounds before heading back to his office.

Stepping into his office, Frank closed the door behind him; just for a moment it shut off the noise from the squad room. In the near silence he watched as Joyce hung up his phone and wondered if she'd be willing to join him so they could start a new life somewhere else. Because if things went the way he thought they might, he for one was not going to be able to stay on in the Chicago PD. When the dust settled, and assuming he was still alive, the crap was really going to hit the fan.

“Frank?” Joyce called softly from across the office.

“What?” Frank gave a small self deprecating laugh, “Sorry I was miles away.”

“Best place to be Pizza-man,” Joyce agreed.

“Who were you on the phone to?” Frank was, once more, the businesslike police Captain.

“I have a few friends in the DA's office,” Joyce began, “people who owe me favours, you know?”

“I think I do Councillor,” Frank gave her a half smile, “can they help?”

“Until I called them they were unaware of what was happening on The Hill,” Joyce explained.

“Unaware!?” Frank gasped, “How could they not be...”

“Because Chief Daniels and the Mayor's office has kept them out of the loop. Frank,” Joyce took a deep breath, “whatever's going on the corruption must go all the way to the top. The money involved must be so big that they don't care if a precinct of cops get wiped out in the process.”

“My god, Joyce...” for a moment Frank was lost for words, “...if I get out of this I'm personally going to shoot Chief Daniels in the head for this...”

“Form a line after me,” Joyce replied with a shrug, “but it might not come to that.”

“Why not?” Frank moved around his desk and opened a drawer.

“Well if the DA is the man I think he is,” Joyce touched the bandage on her head and winced, “he'll get on to the Governor and we'll only have to hold out until the National Guard arrives.”

“In the mean time,” Frank took his spare revolver from his desk draw, opening the cylinder he started to load it with rounds from the box of ammunition he'd just got.

“Hey, Frank,” Joyce held up her hands and took a step back from Furillo, “I don't need a gun I doubt I could shoot someone anyway.”

“It's not for you to shoot other people,” Frank said quietly as he held the weapon out to Joyce, “it's...”

“You mean...?” Joyce stood with her mouth open as she stared in shock at Furillo.

“If they get in you may not want to be taken alive,” Frank held out the gun towards Joyce again, “this'll at least give you the option.”

0=0=0=0

Out at the bottom of the steps at the front of the precinct house, Howard Hunter slipped the last of his spare cartridges into the cylinder of his .357 Magnum. Snapping the cylinder closed he raised the weapon single handed and aimed at the red-eyed, homicidal addict who was charging at him. Squeezing the trigger the big revolver bucked in his hand as the top of the addict's head exploded in a fan of blood, bone and brains.

“Come on men,” Howard called, his pipe still clenched between his teeth, “get inside.”

As the last of his Swat officers disappeared inside the precinct house, Howard shot another rioter who'd got too close. After taking one last look at the scene of destruction that had once been Hill Street, Howard slowly walked up the stairs towards the front door of the station. Pausing as officers yelled at him to get himself inside, he gave the street one last look before going into the building and letting the uniformed officers barricade the door behind him.

Standing for a moment in the entrance lobby as officers moved filling cabinets to block off the door (paperwork was the bane of every street cop's life, but at least now it was serving a useful purpose), he wondered where the slayer was. If as he suspected she was with Mick Belker she'd be safe enough, Belker was a good man he'd know what to do. Another thought entered Howard's mind as he moved to search out some ammunition for his hand gun. When this was all over he'd be giving those fools in London a piece of his mind for not telling him about the slayer being in his area.

“Judas Priest!” Howard muttered angrily as he strode through the milling officers towards his locker where he kept his spare ammo.

0=0=0=0

Walking across the deserted street towards the old apartment block, Buffy shivered, some of it was due to the cold, but some of it was due to the feeling of unease she felt the closer she got to the building.

“Hold on Mick,” Buffy reached out and touched Mick's arm bringing him to a halt, “I think we've found the right place.”

“How'd y'know?” Mick reached for his weapon as he turned to look at Buffy.

“I don't know how much you know about the slayer,” Buffy began, “but I have a sort of 'spider sense', I can sense danger.”

“And you can sense danger now?” Mick asked concerned.

“Totally,” Buffy gestured at the building, “and its coming from in there.”

“You better stay behind me...” Mick said as he went to walk in front of Buffy.

“Get outta here!” Buffy laughed as she pushed passed Mick, “I'm the slayer I'll sense if there's any real danger way before you do.”

“No look,” Mick managed to catch up with Buffy and stand in front of her bringing her to a halt, “Look, whoever's in there probably have guns, I won't be responsible for getting the slayer shot.”

“Okay,” Buffy put her hands on her hips and sighed heavily, “what you say we go in together?”

Mick thought about this for a minute, it was obvious that Buffy was determined to see this through to the end and there was no way he could actually stop her, short of shooting her himself.

“Okay,” Mick shook his head in defeat, “we go in together.”

“Knew you'd see it my way!” Buffy laughed before neatly side stepping around Mick and headed towards the door to the apartment block.

“HEY!” Mick cried out as he followed her up the short flight of stairs that led to the front door.

At some point in the past the doors had been boarded over in an attempt to keep the street people from taking over the building. Just as she was about to start pulling the boards from the door, Mick arrived beside her and easily pushed the door open.

“How'd you know it was open?” Buffy demanded, a little put out because she'd been prepared to break down an already open door.

“I'm a detective remember,” Mick grinned before pointing at the floor, “you can see the marks where the door has been opened and closed.”

“Oh yeah,” Buffy looked down and saw the marks, feeling a little foolish she followed Mick into the lobby.

Inside and the lobby was only lit by the few stray beams of sunlight that got in through the gaps between the boards over the door. Buffy hated situations like this because even her slayer enhanced eyesight wasn't much help. In the night or in full daylight she could see perfectly, but this sort of half light where her eyes had to adapt between bright beams of light and almost pitch darkness it wasn't so good. However she had other senses that didn't rely on light.

“Quiet!” Buffy whispered as she held up her hand bringing Mick to a halt.

“What?” Mick whispered back.

“I can hear someone...” Buffy cocked her head and listened harder, “...no, make that two some ones.”

“Where?” Mick whispered again as he started to pull Buffy out of the line of fire.

“Hey,” Buffy hissed as she pulled her arm from Mick's hand, “I'm not a...”

Before Buffy could tell Mick what she wasn't, an old service door which probably led down to the basement opened. Two men stepped out into the half light of the lobby to confront Buffy and Mick. Both new comers were white, one was big and stupid looking and the other was shorter and the more intelligent looking of the two. The big guy led the way, a heavy looking case in one hand and an automatic pistol in the other.

“FREEZE DIRTBALL!” Mick yelled before adding, “POLICE!”

The big guy raised his weapon to point it at Mick, but never got the chance to fire as Buffy kicked the weapon out of his hand. Realising the game was up the shorter guy pulled a weapon of his own and started to fire not really caring who or what he hit. His first couple of rounds hit the big guy in the back who fell to the dusty floor with a stunned and surprised look on his face. Mick fired back, the muzzle flashes of the two pistols strobed across the room like some hellish disco-lights. Gun-smoke started to fill the lobby until Mick managed to get a clear shot at the short guy and shot him dead with a bullet to the head.

“BUFFY!” Mick moved cautiously forward to check on his victim, “Check the other guy make sure he's dead.”

Keeping his pistol trained on the perp, Mick kicked the guy's fallen gun out of his reach before checking for a pulse. It was as he'd suspected, the perp was dead, not that it bothered him.

“How's the other guy?” Mick stood up and turned expecting to see Buffy standing over the other perp, much to his surprise she wasn't. “Buffy?” 

Mick moved across the lobby, stepping out into the open he saw Buffy lying on the floor, blood oozing from a big hole in her chest.

“BUFFY!?” Mick screamed as he rushed to her side, “Oh Buffy...” he almost sobbed as he knelt down beside her, frantically he felt for a pulse, “...damn it!” 

Why had he let her come in with him, why hadn't he made her stay outside? Well, the answer to that was easy, he couldn't have stopped her. This answer didn't make him feel any better. Sitting on the floor next to Buffy's body he wiped the tears from his eyes. Her eyes were still open staring sightlessly at the ceiling, a look of shocked surprise forever frozen on her face.

“Damn you, Buffy Summers,” Mick fought to choke back the tears, “why couldn't you have stayed outside...” even as he spoke he knew the answer; it simply wasn't in her nature, “...why couldn't you have stayed with me?”

0=0=0=0

Waking up in the dark, Buffy knew with a certainty that couldn’t be denied that she’d died and she’d gone somewhere where she’d been loved. That somehow she was back in her own world and she was lying in her coffin. With a strength born of the slayer added to her panic at being buried ‘alive’, Buffy fought her way out of her coffin and towards the surface.

The End.

**A/N** : Unfortunately, one way or another, Buffy always has to die at the end of these stories so Willow can resurrect her at the beginning of Season Six! 


End file.
